


An Abyss for Atonement

by LambentLaments



Series: and the abyss stares back [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Annabeth thinks too much, F/F, F/M, Flashbacks, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape, Rape Aftermath, gay Mardi Gras, post-BoO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-04 22:23:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3093410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LambentLaments/pseuds/LambentLaments
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico di Angelo was the little black lump in the back of her mind. She would have been content to leave it at that.</p><p>Or, the one in which Nico was raped, Annabeth feels irrationally guilty, and they all go questing to gay Mardi Gras.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Abyss for Atonement

**Author's Note:**

> It was pretty obvious to me that there's a character discrepency in Nico between The Son of Neptune and The House of Hades, and the fact stayed on my mind for quite a while until I was researching and WHAM I hit an epiphany. I highly urge you to look up BPD on wikipedia, and see if you can agree to my rationale.
> 
>  
> 
> Please excuse that the dates are a bit off in this fic, since Southern Decadence is held during Labor Day Weekend.

It was a beautiful day; camp half blood stretched out docile and languid under the sun, contentment almost tangible in the sweet summer air. Peace, she thought, and smiled as the pain riddled screams from the lava wall and sword arena echoed throughout the campgrounds. It was three days after the defeat of Gaea, and the newfound prospect of serenity, of normalcy, was finally beginning to register.

 

She walked quickly between the cabins, not out of any real hurry, but in a conscious effort to stop herself from skipping. _Skipping_ , it was demeaning and childish. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually skipped. More than half a lifetime ago, really. She had bartered away her childhood before she was old enough to really understand what she was getting in return.

 

 _This_ is what I got, she thought, full of unbridled affection for camp, felt the soft ground beneath her feet. Not soft like Gaea’s _drown in dirt, petty human_ soft, but normal soft, lush with overgrown grass. With this thought in mind, she passed by cabin 9 and saw two familiar figures. “Hey!” she called to Jason. “I’m going to the infirmary to check up on Nico. Wanna come with?”

 

He gave a small wave in dismissal. Piper, sitting next to him on the cabin steps turned away briefly before turning to shake her head, eyes puffy and still moist.

 

Any impulse to skip now miles away, Annabeth went to sit beside her.

 

“Are you here about Leo?”

 

“Yeah, it’s just... he deserves proper rituals, even if we don’t want to admit it, or he can’t get into hades, and we don’t want him to wander around lost. Hephaestus cabin should see that,” said Jason, looking carefully at his girlfriend.

 

Annabeth agreed in silence, though she wouldn’t have thought he’d be the one to propose it. The rest of the seven was somewhat in denial of Leo’s death, and barring Piper, Jason had been the closest to Leo.

 

Then again, she’d seen Jason talk to Nico when she and Percy had visited the infirmary to check up on the son of Hades. She hadn’t had a chance to give much thought to it, except that she was pleasantly surprised at their apparent closeness, (gods knew the kid deserved some kindness in his life), as she’d been distracted by Percy soon after. But Jason must have talked to Nico about Leo then at the infirmary or maybe before, since the son of Jupiter looked assured enough in his proposal, albeit understandably despondent.

 

Annabeth grimaced as she remembered the events of yesterday. She’s been forced to drag her idiotic _vlakas_ of a boyfriend (who, she told herself, did not look absolutely adorable when pouting. Nope. Not at all) whining in a loud whisper, ‘How am I not your type?’ away from Nico, who was staring at him with something akin to utter abhorrence. He’d only barely escaped being dragged down to the most harrowing corners of the underworld by the intervention of Will Solace, who’d come running at the sound of the laminate flooring cracking. He’d hurriedly announced that Nico needed a full body checkup and make a child of Hypnos (the half-blood equivalent of an anesthesiologist), put him to insta-sleep.

 

Jason misinterpreted her frown. “I don’t want to believe it either, but this is all we can do for him.”He rubbed his temple. “I shouldn’t have let him go alone. I should have….I don’t know, stayed around to catch his body after the explosion, or something”

 

“It’s not your fault.”Annabeth said gently. “He wouldn’t want you to beat yourself up.”.

 

She saw Piper was close to tears again, though her face convulsed as if she was trying her hardest to manage a smile.“He’d hate to see us like this”

 

Annabeth closed her eyes and pallid faces loomed out from under her eyelids; of dead siblings, of her friends, of Luke. Death was fair. She hadn’t known, they hadn’t known what they awaited them, either.

 

No. Don’t think of those faces. It was too easy to let their voices eat her up.

 

She mourned them as wind blew over the treetops and the rustle of leaves sang in a pleasant cacophony with the chirping of birds.

 

She registered another sound, of falling footfalls and opened her eyes. They greeted Will Solace coming towards the cabin.

 

“Is no one there?” he said, leaning to see through the cabin window.

 

“Do you need someone?”

 

“Yeah, the infirmary fridge broke down and we need ice.”

 

“They’re all at the lake. Wanna wait with us?”

 

He shook his and backed down from the window. Annabeth frowned. It wasn’t like him to be so reticent.

 

“So, how’s Nico? You’re letting him out today, right?” she tried.

 

To her surprise, he tensed up a little at that and sighed, running his hand through his mop of hair. “Yeah, about that.” He directed his question at Jason and Piper. “You guys were with him on the ship, right?”

 

They nodded. Will looked for a second at Annabeth, hesitant, but continued. “How long did he forgo solid food? I mean.” He seemed to hold himself in check. “Can you tell me what find of stuff he ate?”

 

Jason and Piper looked at each other uncomfortably. “Um, we don’t really know…”

 

“I saw him eat a grape once a couple days after?”

 

“One grape? Like, one cluster?” asked Will.

 

“Errr no, like, just the one.” Jason knitted his brows, trying to remember, which would have been pretty funny if he hadn’t looked so worried which made Annabeth suspect he and Nico hadn’t been in nearly so good terms back on the Argo II, at least not at first.

 

Big surprise.

 

She looked at Will and was shocked to see him frowning in constrained anger. She’d know him as a fellow camper for years, and not once had she seen him lose his temper. “And that’s normal, of course.”

 

“Will, I know you’re concerned about his weight and I am, too, but you know he wouldn’t have let anyone coddle him. It’s not like we could have forced him to eat if he wouldn’t,"  Jason said, sounding a little annoyed at the accusatory tone in Will’s voice.

 

“Wouldn’t….” Will muttered quietly and Annabeth’s blood chilled. She could guess at the implication of that word. Couldn’t eat, not wouldn’t. Nico’s checkup must have turned out more serious than anyone could have assumed.

 

Apparently, Jason hadn’t heard. “What?”

 

Will shook his head, “Some friends you are.”

 

“Hey dude we are!” Piper’s eyes widened as Jason stood up and grabbed Will.

 

“We do care about him.” Jason just about growled.

 

 _But you didn’t, did you? You couldn’t have. He wouldn’t let you. Who did really, except for her?_ , said a voice in the back of her head. She tried to ignore it, because she knows it’s her fatal flaw talking, the one that tells her in so many words that ‘only she can fix everything’.

 

“Then did you check,”said Will, rounding on Jason, pushing his hand away. “if he was okay when he was rescued? Or before he went on a suicide mission? “You wouldn’t care about a _friend_ if he died.”

 

Leo’s death still hung heavy over them, and though he wasn’t insinuating that, she knew what they were all thinking of.

 

Still she couldn’t move fast enough to stop Jason’s fist making contact with Will’s face.

 

But Piper’s words could.

 

“Stop,” she said, and the two froze like ridiculous ice sculptures, Jason half a second from breaking Will’s nose, Will’s eyes all scrunched up. Annabeth felt herself stiffening as well, before loosening up after realizing this a couple seconds later.

 

The two boys return to normal stances too, but still glowered at each other.

 

“Will, tell us what’s wrong.” Piper’s words were so spiked full of magic she could feel it dripping off them.

 

Even though it wasn’t directly spoken at her, she could feel the words wash over her. As she restrained herself, she still felt the overwhelming urge to tell them everything; about what happened in Tartarus and the nightmares it caused, about how it had changed Percy, about the ones she mourned about, about how she still thought about Luke.

 

It was a mark of Will’s reluctance to speak that he just about spat the words out through gritted teeth.

 

She heard the words. Like a rock thrown in a pond, they rippled the surface of her contentment and broke it.

 

There was silence.

 

Piper had tears in her eyes as she brought her hands to her mouth. Annabeth watched her, dazedly. It wasn’t Piper’s fault;she’d have to assure her, later. She would have to, because Jason looked like he was going to be sick.

 

Piper didn’t like to use charmspeak on her friends, and Annabeth would have to tell her what she did was excusable because she had been visibly shaken; Leo heavy on her mind, her eyes red and face flushed. She’d have to remind her how their powers were impacted by strong emotion, how, when upset, Percy destroyed the plumbing, Jason shot off sparks, Nico messed with the lighting.

 

Nico

 

Oh, Nico.

 

Will’s words finally crushed through the upper layer of her mind, the one that noticed things but didn’t think, and settled into the deeper realms. She wished they hadn’t, because that was also where bad things were.

 

Things like guilt.

 

From far away came the shouts of happy campers, whooping and laughing from some game they’d won. Her ADHD mind seized the opportunity to wonder who they were. Hermes cabin, it decided. That was the voice of Travis Stoll and that was-

 

 _Shut up_ , she told it.

 

Will rubbed his face and let out a long sigh from between his fingers.

 

“We won’t tell anyone.”Piper whispered.

 

Will nodded and turned to leave.

 

“Wait.” Annabeth felt like she was watching herself from very, very far away. When had she found her voice? Still, she had to know, had to find out. “When?”

 

She sounded horrifyingly calm, a habit borne from years of practice

 

Please let it be when I couldn’t have known, said another, hateful, selfish voice in the back of her head. This time she was too distracted to push it away.

 

“He’s almost completely healed, so couple weeks back.”

 

Tartarus

 

 

 

=====

 

That night she researched- her default setting for anything that eluded her. For the past few nights,she’d stayed at Cabin 3, spooned against Percy, chasing away each other’s nightmares, but tonight she craved the comforts of books and scrolls.

 

She read by the light of her sibling’s laptop, alternating between scrolls and internet articles, at the workshop part at the back of the cabin.

 

She stared into the monitor.

4:18 read the clock in the bottom left corner. She rubbed her eyes. Some of the things she found were disconcerting, but to be honest, Greek mythology had much more gruesome stories to offer.

 

She missed Daedalus’laptop. Her thoughts wandered. She’d read the Bibliotheke to find out about the Minotaur, when she was twelve and a boy had run into camp, carrying nothing but its horn in his hand, frightened and grieving. She’d found out more than she’d bargained for. That is, exactly how the Minotaur was conceived. Daedalus had made Pasiphaëa hollow wooden cow she could get into with her legs spread apart, a hole drilled in the middle where Poseidon’s bull could put…

 

Okay, she was not going to think about that. Nope, never. She was glad the seven had killed the sorceress. Annabeth had missed the fight, though apparently she’d been resentful at the gods for punishing her for her husband Minos’ crime. She thought of the Bibliotheke again despite herself. Pasiphaë had cursed Minos to ejaculate scorpions and snakes.

 

Urrgh.

 

She hated the Bibliotheke. Okay, she didn’t, because she thought it was a little bit of a sin to hate a well-written book, but really, she came close.

 

Her thoughts turned to Minos and of course, that line of thought led her down the well-troddenpath to Nico di Angelo.

 

Who, or what had done this to him? Her immediate thoughts flew to Otis and Ephialtes. They did have a criminal record on that account. In fact, it was the reason they had died the first time; they had tried to assault Artemis, and so to protect her maidenhood she had turned into a deer, and the twins had struck each other with their javelins, trying to kill it. The twins might be small for giants, but they were over ten feet tall, and the thought of them touching Nico was not only sickening, it was terrifying.

 

For years now, she had associated Nico with a little black lump in the back of her mind. It was always there, bumping into her other thoughts whenever it could. It wasn’t guilt, per se, though she knew that was Percy’s main feelings for the kid. It wasn’t even worry. If she had to describe it, she would say it was somewhat like the nagging feeling that you’ve lost something important, without knowing exactly what it was.

 

Now the Lump was bigger than ever, digging painfully into every thought she had.

 

She scrolled her mouse through the article she was reading, a police account written in overloading detail.

 

She’d subconsciously been calling what she’d heard, the _Happening,_ because she couldn’t say it to herself.

 

Was it that surprising, after reading all those myths, what had happened? Gods and Titans and monsters and even heroes had no scruples at all when it came down to…..down there.

 

Hades and Persephone. Orion and Merope. Dionysus and that nymph. Poseidon and Demeter. Hephaestus and Athena (sooooo very glad that didn’t work out.). Zeus and pretty much anything that stood still long enough.

 

The Happening was so common there was even a goddess for it.

 

She had never questioned it as a kid, but as a hormone-pumping teenager, she couldn’t help thinking. She’d been kidnapped herself, and had rescued others from captivation numerous times. Yet amidst all the physiological and psychological abuse, that particular sector had never been an issue. Why hadn’t it?

 

The question raged over her, and she was glad it did, because though it was an enigma it wasn’t an actual real live problem she had to solve, like the one she had burning through her mind. She put her head in her hands.

 

She dreamt of Minos, which led to scorpions, which led to the manticore, which led to large, black eyes staring up in fear and naked innocence as she held out her hands towards the void, falling, falling into cold darkness.

 

 

 

=====

 

Annabeth watched Jason’s white scar move up and down.

 

“Um, Annabeth, are you listening?”

 

“What? Yeah.” She shook her head. “I didn’t get much sleep last night”

 

He nodded, as if he understood why.

 

It was late in the morning, and the dining pavilion was nearly empty save for the several campers who’d slept in. Her siblings had found her asleep on her desk, not an uncommon occurence for the average Athena camper.

 

“I was saying we should talk. About yesterday, you know?”

 

She gathered up her bread and cheese, wishing half heartedly the nymphs would serve them something less healthy. Jason led her towards his table, where Piper was already there. Technically,they weren’t supposed to sit at each other’s tables, but she’d noticed that Jason was making a conscious effort to break out of his Roman mould, and overstepping little rules like these was probably part of it, so she didn’t say anything.

Besides, Chiron wasn’t here to tell them off.

 

As she walked, she saw the large crack that ran across the floor of the hall. She dragged her feet across it a little as she made to sit down.

 

Nico di Angelo had made that crack. His powers had been triggered when he’d found out about Bianca’s death, making earth swallow the skeleton warriors attacking Percy. She’d always thought it a little odd that his anger had resulted in saving Percy instead of hurting him, since outbursts were always true to impulse. Now she knew.

 

“I should have known.” Jason was saying.

 

She started, it had sounded as if he knew what she was thinking about, though of course he didn’t.

 

Piper put a comforting hand on his arms. “Stop blaming yourself for everything.”

 

“He freezes whenever someone touches him. He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t walk or stand up or heck, even sit down properly at first. We all saw that. He was emotionally unstable, and we actually cast him off for it.”

 

“To be fair to you his BPD started way back before that,” she said. Wow Annabeth, that didn’t sound like a jerk at all.

 

“What’s that?”

 

She started ranting off. When someone wanted to know something you knew, you told them. “Borderline Personality Dis…...” She cut off. “It’s….well, never mind.” She’d have told him, but she’d remembered how closely linked were suicidal behaviors with BPD and she didn’t want them to look it up later and wonder what exactly had pushed Nico to volunteer to carry the Athena Parthenos. Like she had.

 

“He must have showered for hours.” Piper said dully. “When we were asleep. Leo complained about the water shortage the day after he was rescued. ”

 

She wanted to tell them to stop blaming themselves, but that would be a bit hypocritical. There was more to the title ‘heroes’ than the fact that a god screwed (or in her case, thought really, really, hard) with your mortal parent. Varying degrees of hero complex was an integral part of all of their character.

 

They hadn’t known anything was off, but she had. She thought back, to seeing Nico strap himself to the statue. He had been different. Even Percy had noticed. Exactly what had changed she could not put to words, not yet, but one thing was for sure-the kid who couldn’t meet their eyes was not the Nico she knew.

 

“Should we tell him that we know?” Jason asked.

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“We should, shouldn’t we?” said Piper. “You have to talk about these things. He wouldn’t want anyone else to know. We can help him. It’s genuine psychotherapy, or something.”

 

“Shhhhh.”

 

“We can’t just pretend it didn’t hap-“

 

Annabeth rolled her eyes at Jason. “No, he’s here," she hissed at him, pointing her chin slightly towards behind his back.

 

Will and Nico were coming up the hill between the pavilion and the Big House. Will was smiling and talking animatedly, while the dark haired boy was answering in monosyllables, though he didn’t really seem to mind the attention. When Nico wasn’t looking however, there came over Will a look that was both worried and determined, as if he thought that his happy nonchalance was the only thing stopping the kid from disintegrating in front his eyes.

 

Will headed for his own table, after pointing at the food and teasing him in a light, reprimanding sort of voice. Nico had probably been told him to eat more.

 

Jason called to Nico making his way to Hades table. He approached them a little wearily. Will looked at them over his shoulder as though he thought they might pounce on him. Annabeth smiled and patted the seat next to her. He sat, a bit farther away from her than what would be the norm.

 

“So Will finally let you out, huh?” asked Jason.

 

“Yeah.” He took a piece of bread and removed the crust slowly.

 

Annabeth watched him by the corner of her eyes. Wearing a camp half-blood t-shirt, he looked better than he had a couple days ago. His skin, still very pale, had lost its sickly blue-green tinge and the dark circles under his eyes weren’t nearly so prominent. However, she was, if possible, more worried now. Jason’s comment was nearly an open invite for a sarcastic comment, and Nico had let it pass. The Nico she knew never gave up a chance to look smug at someone. A knot formed itself at the bottom of her stomach..

“I thought it was a three day deal.”

 

“He made me stay for the night after my checkup.” He shrugged. “He tried to hold me down for a few days more, but it’s not like there’s anything wrong with me.”

 

So Nico didn’t know Will found out about…..the Happening.

 

“It’s good that you’ve got a friend looking after you, though.” Jason sounded so patronizing Annabeth almost winced. For some reason Piper hid a small smile under her hand at this. Unfortunately,Nico had seen it too, and watched her from behind his bangs, as if he were trying to discern whethershe was laughing at his expense.

 

He looked at her, half-staring, half-glaring the whole time he made his goblet fill up with coffee and took a sip.

 

“Are you planning on doing any camp activities today?” Piper said finally in a desperate effort to break the tension.

 

Nico shrugged, finally breaking his gaze to eat his crust.

 

“Wanna go to archery practice? I’m pretty bad at it. ”said Jason, brightly. The first time she had met Jason she hadn’t liked him that much. Well, okay, she’d been downright hostile, but he’d been tossed to them as a replacement for Percy, she was entitled to some animosity. A large share of her initial distrust, however, had come from how he strove to be so perfect. Right now, he sounded like the protagonist from some bland grade-school chapter book, the kind that told you to share your toys and not pull girls’ pigtails.

 

It had also rubbed off his girlfriend. “Yeah, come with us, Nico. It’ll be fun.”

 

Nico frowned at her, and with all his usual subtlety of a raging hellhound said, “Why are you being nice to me?”

 

Piper winced noticeably. Annabeth tensed, not at Nico’s bluntness-that was nothing new, but at how Nico looked away after that, silently glaring at the Dorian columns, as if he regretted saying anything. He looked as angry with himself as he was at Piper. It was alien, the Nico she knew gibed and taunted without remorse.

 

They should have known better than to be overly condescending. Nico was _sensitive_. Not in the sense that he got riled up at anything (which, too, of course, was also true), but in that he knew when people talked about him, when they forced a smile on their face when they were secretly scared of him. He was blunt from social inexpertise, not because he was imperceptive.

 

She looked at Piper. She had wondered about Nico’s time at the Argo II, but as unapproachable Nico could be, she had had no doubt at all that her friends she loved and respected would have been tolerable towards him. Apparently even Piper, kind and open as she was, hadn’t been able to bring herself to actively reach out for him. Annabeth now saw their rationale for their guilt, even though she could not concur. It only succeeded making her sadder, by making her realize the extent of Nico’s self-isolation.

 

“I’m sorry. I promise I just want us to be friends,” said Piper.

 

Nico softened at that. “Archery sounds great.”he said, looking back to his plate and stuffing the now crustless bread in his mouth.

 

At that, Annabeth knew they could never tell him that they knew about the Happening. He should not know that they approached him with ulterior motives- guilt and pity. Because if there was anything that could destroy Nico di Angelo even more, it was a promise made to be broken.

 

“You promised! I hate you!” he’d screamed at Percy years ago, his anger raw, and oh so wrong on something so young and vulnerable. But the anger that pervaded Nico now was much worse. His anger, once boiling hot and very real, was now dry and brittle, as if it was only there as a habit.

 

“Remember that time Apollo cabin tried to teach you? You almost put a hole through Kayla.” It was the light sort of banter she or Percy could have with him last year, before the rest of the camp got to him and he’d run to the underworld.

 

She’d been expecting a sassy remark. The last time she’d said the same thing last year, he’d rolled his eyes and threatened to put a hole in her, if she didn’t shut her hole. (On a totally unrelated note, Travis and Conner Stoll, overhearing, had made a joke about another hole both she and Kayla had. Percy had howled with laughter and Annabeth had been forced to kick the shit out of all three boys. Conner still had the scars.)

 

To her chagrin and surprise, he said, “I was young. I’m better now, I’ve practiced.” with his mouth full of bread, glaring at her, as if daring her to contradict him,

 

But Jason and Piper didn’t look surprised at any of this, only a little sad. They exchanged a glance that was pained but also somehow tired, as if saying ‘classic Nico, not again.’

 

It crashed down to her. If anyone should be guilty, it was she.

 

They did not know Nico was not himself.

 

The real problem was that they had, from she and Percy, been forced to formed an image of a hot tempered, secretive, and admittedly, creepy, kid. This was all true. Really, it was not a bad caricature at all. But the thing about caricatures was that they were never, ever the real image.

 

They could not have known that as rare an occurrence Nico laughing been, he’d easily sneered, smirked, sniggered and snorted and done other stuff that started with s. All that was replaced with a single grimace on his pale face.

 

They had expected a quiet, angry, weird kid and had gotten a quiet, angry, weird kid. Who could know the difference? Hazel had, and fretted, but even she, despite their strong sibling affection, had only known her brother during a small time-frame when he’d been weighed down exponentially with Percy’s disappearance.

 

Only she and Percy could understand how Tartarus could spit out something different from what it had swallowed. Only they could realize that it had. (More than once, she thought, the image of Percy’s cruel face as he moved poison surfacing for a painful split second.)

 

While she’d been thinking of how Tartarus had changed him, Nico finished his breakfast. He was eating properly now, which was a good thing. She wanted to say this to Nico but she stopped herself. She didn’t know how to approach this emptier, drier Nico. Talking to Nico was always like walking on thin ice but this time she felt like she’d lost her bearings completely.

 

The three left for archery, and she got up to look for her boyfriend. She had put off telling Percy about what transpired yesterday. She’d needed to wrap her head around it.

 

She found him by the lakeside, eating a sandwich, cheering for Hermes cabin in their canoe race. She sat next to him, and didn’t even push him away when he kissed the corner of her mouth like she usually would when he kissed her while eating. Percy didn’t notice.

 

Like she hadn’t noticed anything about Nico. ..

 

She knew she couldn’t really blame herself. She didn’t have a real chance to talk to him until today. Still, between those short moments she had noticed something was different with him. Even Percy had. She had noticed but had dismissed it after the Gaea War because Nico had told them about his crush, and she had so wanted it to be The Reason.

 

Because it was better than the thought that Nico hadn’t, couldn’t, get over the death of his sister; only remaining living family/ surrogate parent/ best and possibly only friend that was the wonder that was Bianca.

 

Because it was better than the thought that his ostracization caused by a)prejudice spanning 3000 years, and b)his utter lack of social skills; further enhanced by Percy abandoning him to the manipulations of an evil ghost and adolescentverbal abuse from his father, might just prove to be irreversible.

 

Because compared to all that, a crush was relatively simple, straightforward, and most of all, not really their fault.

 

It wasn’t their fault that he’d crushed on Percy, of all people; it had been neon lights obvious she had her dibs on him. And it definitely wasn’t their fault that he was gay (wait, no, maybe he wasn’t. He didn’t actually say he was.) So she’d believed her own misgivings, though the loop in logic was glaringly obvious.

 

Nico had said he had been crushing on Percy for a very long time, and now that she knew, Annabeth saw it was true. She didn’t know exactly when his wide-eyed wonder of hero worship had taken its romantic, possibly sexual, edge, but it was definitely before Percy’s disappearance, and last year Nico hadn’t been this sad and empty. Thus, it stood to reason that something had happened to him in Tartarus that sucked out all his vivacity.

 

**Hah, so it was just a crush all along! Now he’s confessed, so everything’s going back to normal! Whoopdeedoo, rainbows and unicorn-flavored candies for everyone!**

 

Percy would think like that, it was how he was. She should have known better, she should have wondered,as she looked at Nico confessing, how, despite the determinedly carefree tone, there was no characteristic lopsided smirk, no quirk of his eyebrow, no overly bright glint in his eyes, no hand gesture

 

She looked at Percy next to her, talking animatedly. “You can come, right? Tyson said he might be too busy cleaning up the monsters so it’ll just be Grover and us. Just like the good old times.” He was talking about his birthday, just two weeks left. “We didn’t celebrate it last year, so Mom promised me a double layer cake.”

 

He finished the last of his sandwich, sucking the remains of mayo on his fingers, and slowly reclined against the grass, elbow propped up by his side. “You shouldn’t lie down after you just ate, you idiot.” She poked his stomach, knowing plain well it was all abs.

 

He rolled his eyes at her. “Sorry, _mom_. Besides,”he caught her finger and played with the palm of her hand. “The Romans do it.”

 

“Romans also ate fermented fish intestines as a staple, and unless you want to smell like a barrel of dead fish I suggest you don’t copy their eating habits to the core. So sit up.”

 

Percy sat up with a pout (again, not cute at all, nuh-uh), not letting go of her hand. He seemed to think of something and brightened up. “Hey did you know that the vomitorium is actually…..”

 

“Not a place you go to vomit so that you can gorge more. Yes, Percy, I knew.”

 

He put her hand against his heart in a mock ‘I’m hurt’gesture. “Awww. Is there anything you don’t know?”

 

She pulled away from his gaze. Yes, in fact, there is. Percy. I didn’t know that the kid whose life we kinda ruined got broken. Again.

 

She couldn’t even say it to herself. But she had to tell him. “Percy, we have to talk about Nico.”

 

“Yeah, alright, I won’t ask him exactly what type he likes again.”

 

“Okay, that too, but,” she hesitated, but plowed on. “We have to make it up to him.”

 

“We will. Now we know what was up with him. Seriously, can you believe it? I thought he hated me.”His voice was joyous and carefree, and she knew then that the fact that Nico didn’t hate him was really the more important to him than what exactly kind of attraction he had for him.

 

Maybe Percy Jackson wasn’t the worst person Nico could have crushed on.

 

She kissed him for that, long and hard, their fingers still intertwined between them. When they broke apart, his lips were red and wet and curled up in a smile.

 

She would tell him. Just not today.

 

The thought of keeping something from Percy made her stomach clench a bit. Ever since they’d officially started dating, they hadn’t kept anything from each other. Admittedly, Percy told Sally everything, too, but to her it had been something new. Strange, and also liberating.

 

But before Nico had confessed, in an uncharacteristically lighthearted tone that honestly sounded more than a little forced, all their discussions about him had made Percy drop his voice, often from annoyance or frustration, but usually from guilt.

 

She thought about Bob, how Percy mourned him. He berated himself how he hadn’t paid attention to people, and as true as it was in a way, she didn’t want to see the pain in his eyes, not just now when he’d found peace. The boy in front of him felt more like Before-Tartarus Percy than she’d seen him in ages, and she wanted to cherish the moment for a little while more.

 

Selfish, selfish.

 

So she didn’t tell him what had happened. How, just as there was a before and after Tartarus- Percy, there was a before and after Tartarus Nico. How, though the changes it made in Nico weren’t as palpable as those from Bianca’s death, they were nearly as devastating.

 

If only Percy hadn’t smiled so hugely, if only his eyes hadn’t crinkled up to sea-green half moons.

 

 

 

=====

 

Later, they’d come down from the lakeside to Athena cabin. “No, I really am tired.I’m going to nap in my own cabin,” she said, pushing Percy off her.

 

“My cabin is quieter. I’ll make sure no one disturbs you.”

 

She rolled her eyes at him. “Except you, you mean. I’m not going to get caught in the middle of the day with-“

 

“Hey, Nico’s back from the infirmary!” He’d noticed Nico, talking on the doorstep with Jason. The blonde’s smile was so large and encouraging her own cheeks hurt just by looking at him. Still, it had worked in getting the kid to talk, and Nico was talking intently.

 

“Jason looks pretty close to him,” said Percy. “When did that happen?” She could hear the competitive tone in his voice and she thunked his head for it.

 

“We should be glad he has more friends now. Don’t start your stupid alpha-male rivalry out on him.”

 

He gave her that wild, uncontained grin that usually made her heart thrum. But this time, evidently, for the wrong reason, since he was now running towards them before she could stop him.

 

“What are you-“

 

“We’re going to make it up to him,” he shouted, voicing her own words back at her. She ran, but he was faster, despite him taking a curved route so that Nico wouldn’t see him approach from behind.

 

“There you are!” he just about screamed. He clapped both of his hands onto Nico’s shoulders. Percy couldn’t see Nico’s mouth open almost comically in shock, so he wrapped his head around in neck in a playful noogie.

 

It was a gesture she’d seen him do often on Grover and Jason. (And try to do, and fail on Tyson.) She wouldn’t have been so mad at him hadn’t the gesture been so obvious a message to Jason, claiming himself as his better friend.

 

That noogie was the ignition point. Nico’s eye went unfocused. The blood went out of his face so quickly someone might have thrown white-green paint over him.

 

Annabeth punched Percy on the side of his face. He reeled back in shock, but there wasn’t time to care. Shadows from under their feet and the cabin were moving towards him, reaching out as if to comfort, or seize. “Nico, look at me. You’re not in Tartarus.”

 

The moment she said mentioned the name of that place, that god, that nightmare, she knew she’d made a mistake. He started hyperventilating, taking two, three gasps instead of one.

 

“Jason, get Will.” There was no hesitation as he ran to the infirmary. She looked around. There was already a crowd forming at the spectacle. She put her hand on his shoulder and he tensed, saying, “No, don’t…don’t touch me.”

 

She tugged him into the cabin, closing the door behind her. It wasn’t very difficult; stiff as he was he was very light. She knew what was happening she’d done her research. She’d also assumed it could be much, much worse, the same way demigods’nightmares were much worse than the mortal kind. She pushed him down to the bad, making him sit. She squatted down to meet his eyes.

 

“Look at me. Focus. Feel the sheets. That is real, not what you’re seeing. Feel the ground beneath you. You can feel it can’t you?”She had no idea how Nico’s underworld senses worked, but she relied on it to be intact in his subconscious.

 

His fists were clenched white, frozen stiff on his thighs. He couldn’t hear her, she realized. His lips were trembling, half-open, and he muttered, in a terrible voice, “Please, stop…it hurts…”

 

The little Lump in the back of her mind throbbed viciously. In all her years of knowing Nico, not once had she heard him beg. His responses to adversities were either tongue-in-cheek or red hot fury. Anger was his defense mechanism, his shield and armor, and seeing him stripped of it was akin to seeing him naked. No one must see this, she thought. Especially not Percy. She was glad she’d brought him in to the cabin. Or perhaps not, she realized a second later, as the shadows curled dangerously near her. It was darker in the cabin, and the green fire made the shadows jump and grow. She shivered, the temperature dropping by the second.

 

Nico’s pupils were blown wide, the dark brown of his iris a nearly invisible ring. She looked at the pupils, and she was inadvertently reminded of the pit itself, an eternal fall of darkness that pulled her in. She remembered his face looking down at her, the sky bright blue behind him, his eyes sunken and shattered but still burning with desperation as he held out his hands for her. She had a second of vertigo, and the whole world was flipping upside down. Instead of Nico trying to catch her, he was reaching out from the pit for salvation, desperation still shining in his face, and sheunable to catch him. They’d been too far away then, but they weren’t now. As she had held Percy’s hands as she had fallen, she found herself reaching for Nico’s fists.

 

His fists were icy cold. She felt a moment of elation as he responded, grasping her fingers painfully. It quickly disappeared as the shadows around them descended upon them. “Nico, no-“

 

She might have caught him, but Tartarus was, again, too strong for her. The world disappeared as Nico dragged her down with her.

 

Facilis descensus averno

 

Easy is the descent to hell.

 

 

 

=====

 

Where it was cold, it’s now blisteringly hot. The smell of sulphur pervades her breath, but that doesn’t register, all she can do is stare straight ahead.

 

He’s smiling at her, Anuklusmos shining in his hand, walking up to her in easy, purposeful strides. She wants to run up to him, hold him, smell him, drink him up, but all she can do is stop her legs from collapsing under her. His name is on the tip on her tongue, reaching out. It falls short, and instead plays out repeatedlyin her tired consciousness like a mantra.

 

“Percy,” she finally manages to croak out as he reaches her. He’s holding out his hand for hers. He’s come for her, he shall save her once again, and now that the moment’s come, she cannot remember how she doubted he could. He’s everything good and noble and _impossible_ rolled into one, the horrors of the pit peel away in insignificance under the light of his halo. For her moment of disbelief, her heart and soul, she could pluck with her own two hands and crush them under his two feet in an excruciating tribute. And so it is no wonder that when he reaches for her right hand, she lets him.

 

She looks into the sea-green eyes that have haunted her nightmares and fantasies alike for the past years. The two years of Percy being everything in her universe, overwhelming the entire world into darkness, melt away. She could drown in those eyes and die content.

 

That’s why she’s too late in noticing that Percy has gently pulled her sword away from her hand and thrown it to the ground behind him.

 

Her limbs are moving before her brain can, but move they both do. She cannot feel Percy’s life force, she realizes as she jumps for her sword. It should have been as radiant as the midday sun in this decrepit place. This Percy is an empty husk. It’s not even human.

 

He’s as beautiful as a beach in August, and he crashes into her like waves crashing onto the cliffside. As the waters break away the rocks, so he breaks her apart.

 

She’s grabbed by her neck from behind. The fact that it doesn’t even feel like Percy anymore is the only fact that she acknowledges before she gags. There’s something around her neck, tight enough to make her choke, but not enough that she can’t breathe at all. She claws at it, taking tiny rasping breaths. It’s hard as rock, and warm enough that she can imagine it being the arm of something alive. Her vision seems to be turning red, or maybe the sky is always that way.

 

But that’s suddenly not important at all because there’s something pressing against the back of her ass. She flails, kicking her feet back into the figure that’s holding her. There’s a low, sultry voice in her ears, or maybe it’s all around her. **Why fight now, little demigod? Isn’t this what you want?**

**Isn’t this what you want?**

 

She tries to scream that it isn’t, not like this, never like this, but her jeans being removed violently, distract her. She tries to push back the thing, and there’s another set of pressure on her shoulders to keep her from moving. If these are arms, the thing definitelyhas more than one pair. Now another one’scircling around her waist. She wants to shadow travel, but the thing would only be teleported with her.

 

The thing is rubbing, whatever it is, down the crack of her ass. It’s dry, and so fucking big, a sob crawls from her mouth. It seems to like that sound, and the rubbing grows faster. Its pressure down her entire back quivers as it chuckles. **I’ve seen the inside of your mind. Don’t pretend you haven’t thought of this. You’ve only brought this upon yourself**. She knows this isn’t true, but it’s a thought that’s pulled from her own mind, and she can’t think clearly anymore, fear is seizing every rational part of her brain.

 

It pushes in without warning, and there’s nothing that can stop her screaming at the top of her voice, making her choke. She’s arching her back, her scream directed towards the red sky. Her anus is burning, she’s getting ripped apart. It’s pain like she’s never felt before. This time the pain is inside, hurting where she’s never thought it could even hurt. It moves inside her, not managing more than quick jerks at first, but growing in intensity until it’s slamming into her in long strides. “Oh, gods, stop. Please.” She chokes out. The seams are unraveling apart from the entire world. She can’t think, primordial pain and shame and fear cripples every conscious thought to oblivion.

 

It makes her change position while it’s still inside her, and she doesn’t even notice. She’s pushed, face first into the ground, its claws or arms or whatever, gripping the back of her neck into the earth. Her knees made to bend, planted ridiculously wide apart, and her ass is sticking out. In this position, it can reach deeper inside her, and she can feel her pelvic bone spreading to accommodate the pressure. She didn’t think it could have hurt more, she was wrong. Her body spasms violently with every thrust. The pain swallows the last traces of her sanity. She wonders why she won’t die. It will stop hurting when she does. Father, kill me, she thinks in a vague prayer. If it reaches him through the void, and she doubts it does, he doesn’t reply.

 

It goes on longer than it should have. The thing isn’t doing this for its own release. It doesn’t need it. The object inside her might just as well be its elbow. The thing is doing it to break her apart, and it’s working. It already knew it would work, because it has seen the inside of her mind- her want, and the shame.

It’s a very strange thing, but there’s a tiny glimmer of pleasure under the pain now, one that she, no, he, doesn’t want. Not pleasure in that it feels good, but that it makes his cock hard, and that’s a bad thing, because it’s being rubbed against the black ground with each thrust.

 

“Please, stop. Please,” he moans

 

At this it speeds up, and he’s getting plummeted into the ground. His cock is twitching under him. **But you like it, don’t you?** It says, the faked innocence in its voice is repulsive. **I can tell you like it.** There’s a final, deeper thrust, and he’s spending, convulsing to the rocky floor. The thing still stays inside him, moving at a steady pace. Without that glimmer of pleasure, there’s nothing to distract him from the pain. “Please, stop, I’ll do anything…it hurts…”

 

 **You will?** It sounds glad at this, and a chill runs down his spine. There’s a final bout of pain as friction tugs at his insides and he hears a plop as the object is removed. He can feel how he is left stretched, gaping into the air.

 

He tries to sit up, but his neck is still pinned to the ground. It’s gone in a second, and he’s being pulled up by his hair.

 

He can’t see. He can’t think. The world is a dizzy mess of black and red. Something is being pushed into his mouth, large and rock-hard. His jaws ache, his lips, dry as they are, crack as they are stretched. The object feels larger than his forearm. He can taste blood, and himself. He has to cover his teethwith his lips and tongue so they won’t get broken, and he grasps the object with his hands to pull it out.

 

 **Why, so eager**. He trembles in shame at this, because he can imagine how he looks. **No need, you’ll get your share**. His head is pulled in, and he chokes, his throat burning. He tries to pull out, but he’s too weak from the pain. He’s so tired, he just wants it all to stop.

 

 **But why, you said you’d do anything. You promised**.

 

You promised.

 

Those words are powerful. Promises are powerful. It jogs something in his memory, a dark haired girl he’s lost, a dark haired boy he loves almost as much. Two people whom he’ll never, ever get to keep. It’s a strong enough jolt that his exhaustion is swept away in a momentary bout of adrenaline. He wrenches his head out from the other’s grasp, pushing with all his strength. He catches the thing by surprise, and rolls away before it can grab back. He ignores the throb in his scalp where his hair is ripped out in chunks.

 

His Black Sword is behind the thing, he wouldn’t be able to get at it without crossing the creature. He reaches inside. His instinct is to call for the dead, but there aren’t any dead in Tartarus, as there never had been life.

 

He takes to the shadows instead, behind rocks, beneath his feet and the creature’s, and they come to their master. They embrace him, console him, laps up the sinews of his existence. He has never succeeded in shadow travelling with this much precision, but as always, his powers respond to his needs.

 

He’s now behind the thing, and he scoops up his sword. As the thing turns,he cuts one of its many limbs in one sweep. He hopes that’s the one that was inside him. It charges, and he’s spiraling his sword forward, meeting it in between. It roars in pain, the sound all around him. It’s leaking from the wounds, but he doesn’t stop slashing and stabbing wherever he can, not stopping until the thing’s little more than a pile of dust. He kicks at it, screaming incoherently, and even that’s gone.

 

He looks at it blowing away. The adrenaline is ebbing away, he’s even more tired, and the pain is still there. He looks around for his jeans and underwear. He sees them nearby. He walks towards them, causing a fire in his insides, and he’s made to move in a slow, bowlegged gait. His boxers are almost in shreds. He uses it to wipe away the blood, flinching when it makes contact with his raw hole. He hides the bloody cloth under a rock. Monsters might smell it, but he doesn’t know what else to do with it. He pulls on his jeans, and stumbles to the banks of the Phlegethon, where he’d been captured. He takes a small sip, and now the entirety of his insides is burning, not just the lower part. That thought’s his coup de grâce.

 

He collapses at the brink of the river, black shards of rock digging into hands and knees. There’s a sob, and he knows it’s coming from his mouth. This pose is too familiar, so he lands on the ground on his sides, in a fetal position. He wants to go to sleep. He has a vague feeling he shouldn’t but he hasn’t slept for a very long time. Monster after monster…the memory is dim, his mind so fuzzy.

 

“Nico.”

 

‘Five more minutes,” he mutters from the folds of his aviator jacket.

 

“Wake up, Nico” There’s a gentle shake of his shoulders and he opens his blurry eyes. There’s Bianca, beautiful as always, smiling at him between the curtains of her long, dark hair. She’s holding out her hand. Groggily, he takes it. She pulls him to his knees and he drinks the fire again, in gulps this time. The pain abates, his mind is clearer.

 

He whips around, but there’s nothing but the black landscape.

 

=====

 

Her consciousness slowly removed itself from Nico’s. With a jolt, she pulled his hand from his.

 

“Bianca?” He said.

 

With that, Annabeth’s heart broke a little.

 

She could see his pupils undulating, and his breathing slowing down to normal. He looked down at his hands, where Annabeth had removed her hands. She remembered the feeling of being tainted, and she knew what Nico, muddled confused, must be thinking.

 

“I…I…” The shadows, wrapped around them, now started to swallow him. They would never know where he’d be spat back out.

 

“Don’t tell Hazel,” he said.

 

“Nico, no!”

 

Just then,the door sprang open. Will shoutout, and with a snap of Clovis’ fingers, Nico crumpled, caught in a dream. Will hefted him into his arms, bridal style, and the shadows drew away into their corners.

 

They left, and Piper peeped in. “Are you okay?”

 

She sounded worried. She must have looked terrible. Annabeth drew herself up onto the bed. Her fingers were trembling like Nico’s had. She closed them upon themselves.

 

“I am.” She sounded so much calmer than she felt. The only reason she wasn’t breaking down right now was that the details of Nico’s memory was already falling through like sand between fingers. The emotions were not her own, and so held less hold upon her brain, like someone was trying to get an110V plug into a 220V socket.

 

“What happened?”

 

“Remember how Hazel had all those flashbacks, the ones she called blackouts, and she took Frank with her once?”

 

Piper put a hand on her shoulder. “Oh, Annabeth.”

 

She fought an instinct that was not her own, to flinch at that hand. The Underworld was where dreams and memories dwelt. To Nico, they were nearly corporeal, in much the same way the shadows were for him. During that memory,she had been Nico, and though the exact feelings were slipping from her mind, she could not forget entirely.

 

“I’ve been stupid, Piper. I thought I understood him. I thought I finally understood what had changed him. I was wrong.”

 

The rape (Yes, rape, she could say it now. Not the Happening.) wasn’t the impetus to his overwhelming sense of shame. It had simply removed his already strained self-denial. They’d been right the first time. The initial source of Nico’s latest change; of his lack of vivacity, was his love for Percy. That was no crush Nico had had. It was love, in its darkest hour, infatuation and denial in an overwhelming turmoil. She too had once felt something similar to someone. The difference was that it wasn’t ignored, it had been encouraged, and the shame had not started until much later.

 

Piper hugged her. Her eyes were wet, and she envied her for being so open to her feelings. Even now, her own years of self-restraint blocked her tears.

 

“I’m going to make him happy.”

 

“No one can do that for him. We’ll help him, but he has to make himself happy. And he will. He’s strong, stronger than anyone of us, I think.”

 

“That’s the whole thing, Piper. I thought so, too. We forced him to be strong, and no one should be forced, not like that. He lost someone who was making all his decisions for him, and then suddenly he has to make them for himself, and of course,they would be bad decisions, but I let him follow them. Ithought his decisions mattered more than what were good for him. He wanted to be alone and miserable, so we let him be. But he shouldn’t be, even though he wants to be.”

 

She wasn’t making much sense, but it didn’t matter. She’d been thinking too much without an outlet. She’d been sinking deeper into herself, and she knew that’s not where the solution lies.

 

“He’s broken again. He’s not the same. You didn’t know him but I did. He was angry and unhappy after Bianca’s death, but he was _alive_. That’s gone now. I don’t know how to pick up the pieces and if I don’t know, who does? I thought approaching Nico was like walking on thin ice, and I was so afraid I’d fall down the cracks that I never let myself get too close.”

 

Piper hugged her more tightly, talking soothingly. “It’ll be all right. We’ll help him.”

 

By this time Nico’s memory felt much less real. She sighed. She hated losing control, or getting too emotional.

 

She detached herself from Piper. “What happened?” she asked. Piper’s hair was a mess.

 

“Jason was trying to beat Percy up, and I had to break it off. Jason might have conjured a small storm in the process.”

 

“You shouldn’t have stopped him.”

 

 

 =====

She thought she’d dream of Tartarus. She was wrong.

 

It’s night, and there’s a campfire. The light shines on Thalia and Luke, who are sitting in front of it, and the flickering orange seems to come from within. They look bigger than life, they’re giants, they’re a fortress.

 

They’re arguing, heatedly but not angrily, it’s as if they’re rehearsing a play, each comeback sharp and well received.

 

“I’m just saying a mace is pretty useless against monsters with a thick hide.”

 

“There are spikes on it. Plus, they’re monsters, hit them hard enough and they go under.”

 

She yawns, and tries to hide it, but Luke sees her anyway and gives her a smile, a real one, reserved for few. “You sleepy?” he says. She shakes her head but her eyelids droop and another yawn crawls out of her. He motions at his lap and she lays her head on it.

 

The fire crackles, and Luke and Thalia’s arguing is a comforting buzz in the background. The moment stretches to eternity, and she knows, with the unwavering conviction of a child, that the three of them are complete as they are. It’s not a revelation of any sort. It’s a thought that lingers on the surface every minute.

 

Luke strokes her hair absentmindedly, and sleep clings to her as if he were spreading it upon her. She closes her eyes.

 

She opens them.

 

At first,she wasn’t sure what woke her up, until she saw Percy convulsing next to her. He was dreaming of Tartarus again, she could tell. She did what she always did, what he always did for her, and held him, gently shaking him awake.

 

Sweat plastered his locks to his forehead, and they really did look like black bits of seaweed. “Seaweed brain," she called. Her presence registered to him, and she shook him harder, gripping his sweaty upper arms. His eyes fluttered open, and she met his wide, frantic gaze.

 

She kissed him, softly. He didn’t respond, and she pushed herself to him, breaching the little distance they had between them, trying to anchor him down.

 

She was glad she had woken up. What she dreamed wasn’t a nightmare at all, it was very pleasant, in fact. The problem was that she suspected that she’d subconsciously put Luke, Thalia and her in place of Percy, her, and Nico. She didn’t know what she found more disconcerting, that she’d allied herself with Nico, or that Percy and her had never been so warm towards him.

 

She kissed Percy again, and this time he responded, chasing her lips. His hand cupped her face and she leaned in, deepening the kiss. Their mouths opened, and there really was no distance between them, only the heat of the moment beckoning each subsequent movement.

 

She resurfaced for air, and Percy took that moment to tug at her shirt. She lifted her upper torso, raised her arms to help him out, and he followed by removing his as well. Without the thin fabrics of their clothes separating them, the closeness was almost overwhelming. Percy moved his lips to her jaw line, and to her neck. She grazed hers to the shell of his ears and he shivered at her breath.

 

She pulled her hand out from their intertwined limbs to touch the outer corners of his left eye, where a small bruise was already fading. She’d thought at first that it had been her, but it had been Jason’s work. After the two had made peace, she’d taken Percy to his cabin to try toexplain the situation. They’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms instead.

 

His arms enveloped her shoulders, and they lowered her back onto the bed, his lips reclaiming hers. He shifted so that he was almost directly on top of her. She felt his knees push against her thighs and opened her legs just enough so that Percy could fit in between them. Her hands were climbing up his back, skimming the muscles she found there. She pulled him in tighter.

 

She gasped in surprise. She could feel his erection despite the double layer of their jeans. Percy’s eyes looked imploringly into her, asking for permission. She answered by grinding her hips against him, elicitinga moan from him.

 

His hand crept to her jeans and unzipped them. She lifted her hips, shimmied out of the jeans. Percy pulled his down to reveal his tent straining against his boxers. He fell in between her again, and supporting himself by his elbow, palmed her crotch, his thumb pushing at her mound. He fumbled, obviously not having a clue what he was doing. This was a new level for them;they’d never gone beyond dry humping.

 

She guided his hand a little below and his thumb press on her clitoris, harder than it should have. She gasped, moving her hips for less pain and more pleasure. Percy moved his fingers up her slit, and she moaned for him. She felt herself getting wet against his hand.

 

It felt good. The sensations were expunging the memories of today clean out of her mind. She wanted to chase this feeling until she couldn’t think anymore. Her mind was a jumble, stock full of charcoal scribbles, and she didn’t want to think anymore.

 

She didn’t want to think?

 

This made her pause. It wasn’t an alien concept for her, but it was one she’d always found unwarrantable. Nobody would call her a romantic, but she did not want her first time to be marred by this particular notion. Percy was trying to push out of his mind Tartarus, and Annabeth was trying to push out of her mind…

 

Nico’s first time wasn’t romantic.

 

She tasted vile in her mouth. The moment she considered Tartarus, today’s memories, ones she’d tried so hard not to rekindle, swarmed back again. They hounded her libido, caught it, and swallowed it.

 

She held Percy’s wrist out of her way and sat up.

 

“What is it?”he asked, a little out of breath. The disappointment in his tone was obvious, and she wanted desperately to shake her head, smile, and give in to his touches until she couldn’t think anymore.

 

Instead she gave a small sigh and readjusted her bra. She looked around to find her clothes, not meeting his eyes.

 

Sometimes she wished she didn’t think too much.

 

“What did I do wrong?”he asked.

 

“No, it’s not you, I swear. It’s me.”She found her shirt between the covers, turned inside out.

 

She couldn’t take this step, no matter how much her hormone jacked-up body told her she wanted to. She was a being born out of pure thoughts, two minds melded together as one. And that was something she couldn’t achieve right now, knowing that she was keeping something from him. As much as her crotch was chiding her head for it, her belief in the power of minds went way beyond the average personal doctrine. It was an integral part of her actual existence. Mind over matter. She couldn’t dismiss it any more than Percy could stop himself from smelling like a sea breeze.

 

She leaned against him and breathed in that scent of the sea. Underneath it, she could smell Percy’s sweat- musky and visceral, combined with the raw tang of sex-her sex! It almost made her lose it again.

 

She set her jaw. “Percy, about what happened today.”

 

The cabin door flung open.

 

Percy gave a muffled sort of scream. She drove under the covers and threw a corner of the sheets on Percy’s lap too.

 

“Annabeth- urgh, Oipho*!”

 

(*Fuck, in ancient Greek.)

 

“Will?”choked Percy, yet too shocked to be angry. The blond turned towards the door, his face in his hands.

 

“Oh, gods. I’m so sorry. I went to Athena cabin and they said you were here and …” he rambled through his fingers.

 

Percy had moved in front of her as if to hide her from his view, but there was no need. She was already up, trying to find her jeans and wear her shirt at the same time. She found them hanging off the opposite bunk. “Is it Nico?” she asked. Will nodded.

 

She grabbed her bone sword and shouted “STAY!” at Percy before he could ask what was going on. She pulled Will by the elbow out of the cabin.

 

It was nearly dark, but there was a fine line of blue over the western horizon, and the clattering of campers from the dining pavilion carried over to them. She almost skewered Will as he changed direction without warning, leading her towards, not the infirmary asshe’d assumed, but cabin one, where she saw the lights were already on.

 

“Good you brought Piper.”said Will, breathlessly after he opened the door to a worried looking Piper and Jason, who was wearing-

Was that a superman shirt? Her ADHD mind put it under the Tell Percy Later List.

 

“What happened?”Jason asked, looking at Will struggling to find his breath.

 

His breathing slowed down, but still didn’t speak, fidgeting his hands down the side of his jean shorts. “He’s gone.”he blurted out in a while.

 

“What?”

“Why?”

“Where?”they chorused.

 

“I don’t know.”he said hopelessly to all three questions.

 

“I’m going to kill Percy. I really will," she moaned.

 

“Yeah, it definitely looked that way,” muttered Will. “But don’t. It was me. I did it.”

 

“What did you do?” Jason took a menacing step towards him, and she had a déjàvu of yesterday. _Testosterones_ , she thought.

 

Will wasn’t meeting their eyes, and he continued fidgeting. She had previously accounted his uncharacteristic nervousness for seeing her half-naked, but as much as her fatal flaw was hubris, she had enough self-awareness to know that she was in no way well-endowed enough to make him act up this much, even if he was 15.

 

He was one of those rare half bloods who were calm enough to make you forget they were all majorly ADHD. So unless he had decided that it would be a good idea to overeat processed sugar just this moment (which she doubted, seeing how he was always telling his cabin mates off of drinking soda.), why was he so nervous?

 

She looked at him uncomprehendingly. Nico was an easy kid to rile, and it wouldn’t be the first time he’d run away. Nevertheless, Will had exhibited none of the hostility or insensibility (her stomach clenched- really, she will kill Percy) liable to tick him off.

 

But Piper had got it.

 

“Will, you didn’t.”she said.

 

Will looked up at her and as Annabeth looked at him she realized that Will’s nervousness had stemmed not from culpability per se, but more from embarrassment.

 

Embarrassment?

 

Piper pushed her boyfriend away and said gently, “He’s not ready. You’re not ready. You know this.”

 

Will’s ears flamed.

 

Oh. _Ohh_.

 

Okay, so she didn’t have to worry about him having seen her half naked. Or then again maybe she still did. Again, maybe he’s not gay- stop labeling other people’s sexuality, Annabeth. Even though everyone does it, you’re better than that. She pushed that thought aside - she’d worry about being politically incorrect in her own subconscious later.

 

Jason still looked confused but Annabeth cut in. They had a quest to go on.

 

 

Chiron was alarmed to be dragged from dinner, and his frown deepened when they told him the reason for it.

 

“Not that I am not concerned for Mr. di Angelo’s safety, you must admit he’s proven himself self-sustainable. It seems irregular to send out a search team when this is far from the first time he’s left without informing anyone.” He looked at Annabeth, and though she’d never show it, the questioning look in his eyes almost made her look away. There hadn’t been any claim for a search party the previous times he’d run from camp- he’d merely come back when she or Percy had needed him.

 

“We have to find him.” Will spoke out before she could. “He’s still not fully stable- a long enough jump would dissolve him into shadow, and he doesn’t have the best record for self-reservation. Plus it’s dark out.” He pointed towards the window and the obvious. “There was an actual reason for those sun lamps I had on him, you know.”

 

Chiron nodded reluctantly. She knew he was holding out for the sake of their safety, but Jason bristled beside her. “I see no reason to stop you. If what you say is true,I suggest you leave now.The optimal number for a quest is three…?”

 

She saw Jason do an actual, swear to the gods, head count.

 

“I’m going,” announced Jason and Will at the same time.

 

“Haven’t you done enou-“

“I need to be there to heal him.”

 

Annabeth stepped between them. She didn’t have the time or patience to smooth things out between the two of them. She eyed Jason. It was much more tempting to have him behind her back, but Will had the better reason for going.

 

“Jason, you have to go to Camp Jupiter to see if he turns up there, and if he does, make sure he doesn’t leave.” He looked ready to argue but she cut in. “If we can’t find him, you have to take Hazel to feel him out and I doubt they’ll trust us enough yet to let us borrow their legionnaires at a moment’s notice.”

 

Actually Reyna probably would, but Annabeth was good at sounding persuasive.

And at lying. She’d ask Hazel to join them as the very last resort. Nico would rather go back to Tartarus than possibly let his ‘baby’ sister see what he’d been through. She remembered the flashback and swallowed. She shared the sentiment.

 

Chiron nodded. “I’ll wake Argos up to give you a ride. And how exactly will you find Mr. di Angelo?”

 

“How good do you think are hellhounds’ sense of smell?”

 

 

 

“Nico’s feet are surprisingly small,” said Piper, examining the grey sock she had in her hand. They’d taken it from cabin 13, which had been nearly bare, except for the single Hades figurine and the couple of socks in the drawer.

 

It had taken many violent jabs with a mop to wake up Mrs. O’Leory, but it had been done, and she was sitting happily with her tail wagging against the floor, each wag as loud as a hammer against an anvil.

 

Will arrived with his doctor’s bag in his hand. “Sorry it took so long. Our supplies are low at the moment. I had to make a detour to find them.”

 

Annabeth nodded and turned toward the hellhound. “Umm. Mrs.O’Leory, you can smell out Nico, right?” she walked up to the tank sized hellhound. She knew the dog was intelligent, but she’d never been one of those people who talked to dogs as if they were human. “Do you think you can find where he is? We have to go help him.” She gave a little woof. Little, in that it didn’t destroy their ear canals.

 

Piper held out the- yes, it was surprisingly small -sock.

 

Mrs. O’Leory sniffed it- a little incredulously, imagined Annabeth. She ignored it, and sniffed the air instead. They all climbed onto her back, and Mrs. O’Leory bounded across the floor. “So how exactly does this wor-“

 

Will never got to finish that sentence. The world peeled off around them, leaving only ice-cold shadows that swam past their faces.

 

As quickly as it had started, the trip ended.

 

Ignoring that her dinner seemed to be reluctant to stay inside her, Annabeth jumped off and tried to get her bearings. She’d been afraid she’d be led to any of the gateways to Hades, and she was glad that this place probably wasn’t any of those. Mrs. O ‘Leory couldn’t shadowtravel them to the Underworld, or even if she could, stop Nico’s dad from throwing them into the fields of punishment for disrupting his realm. They’d arrived in a park by the roadside where she could see buildings and parked cars.

 

She examined the cars. “I think we’re in New Orleans,” she said to Piper, who was dazedly sliding off the hellhound, Will was leaning against his staff and looking at the earth as if he wasn’t sure if he wanted to kiss it or throw up at it.

 

She looked at Mrs. O’Leory circling the ground. She’d heard something about Nico and New Orleans, she was sure of it, though she couldn’t remember. Should she IM Hazel?

 

They didn’t have to, an Iris message popped up from the fountain a couple yards away.

 

“Piper? Annabeth?”They ran towards the image of Hazel’s head.

 

“Iris accepted your Drachma?” Annabeth asked. IM was a Greek thing. Hazel nodded . “Her assistant gave Percy a private hotline, remember?”

 

Hazel’s bed hair was as big as an 80s star. “Jason just called to tell me Nico’s missing. Annabeth, you have to find him. I can’t reach him through IM. I don’t want him to be alone again.” Her eyes are red but nowhere as panicked as she’d expected her to be. Jason must not have told her about Nico’s fading problem.

 

“We think he’s in New Orleans. Do you think you know where he might have gone?”she asked. Hazel frowned in concentration. “He likes a graveyard there. He didn’t say which one, but I think it must be St. Louis, it’s a beautiful place.”

 

It should have been strange that a 14-year-old kid would choose a graveyard as a hiding place, but this was Nico, and she was more or else relieved that he actually had a place to sulk, since it meant they wouldn’t have to roam the whole city.

 

Now that she Hazel told her, she remembered Percy talking about how Persephone had summoned Nico from a graveyard in New Orleans, to send the two and Thalia off on a life-threatening quest to go clean up some mess she’d made. Typical. And after that what had happened? Oh right, Percy had left him in the Underworld. Again typical.

 

“I want to join you. Let me help you track him.” Hazel said. Annabeth fed her the same lie she’d told Jason and noted that Hazel didn’t argue back as much as thought she would. She knew about Hazel’s own flashbacks, of course.

 

Hazel Levesque, are the remains of your ghosts still with you?

Annabeth did not blame her for her reluctance. Pain faded away with time, but some of its imprints never quite absconded, and her memories in New Orleans must be painful, all right.

 

“Please be careful, all the voodoo makes mist really strong in New Orleans. Concentrate, and believe nothing. There’s magic in the air.” said Hazel, the daughter of a witch. Annabeth almost smiled at the last sentence, thinking it was a joke, but then saw that it wasn’t- Hazel was just foreign to modern colloquialisms.

 

Her fondness grew, and the tiny seed of annoyance at not seeing Hazel break down for Nico disappeared for good. She promised they’d IM her later, and cut the message.

 

They left Mrs. O’Leory at the park. Hopefully no monster or mortal would be stupid enough to try hisluck against her. They had to walk around a bit to get directions, and by the time they found a stall selling maps, the sun had properly set.

 

It turned out there were actually three Saint Louis cemeteries, fortunately none of them very far apart. They decided to try number 3 first since it was the closest to them. They waited for the bus, which arrived in a few minutes. It was empty save for the three teenage girls at the back of the bus, probably high school students. They were giggling, and talking about how some assignment sucked.

 

“I really wish he’d know better than to keep in the shade or try to shadow travel again.” Will peered out the window at the lasting remains of the sun, as if his father might give him some answers.

 

Annabeth handed him an energy bar she’d bought along with the map and bus schedule. “We’ll get to him soon. We have pretty good leads for a quest.”

 

“We do? I wouldn’t know. This is my first quest.”

 

“It is?” He was camp counselor and older than most in his cabin. Her surprise must have shown because Will smiled understandingly.

 

“It’s okay, I don’t mind. Never really was a fighter.” He tapped the bronze handle of his doctor’s bag. She saw it was in the shape of a single snake curled around a stick, modeled after the rod of Asclepius.

 

“Well, we usually wander around till we find some monster or god that tells us valuable information, then they try to kill us."

 

“Let’s not do that.”

 

But because the entire fucking world (or maybe just the Fates) hates her, Piper whispered to her. “Why are those girls talking about going to school? In August?”

 

She whipped around. The girls looked directly at them, teeth bared in a garish grin.

 

“Oops, miscalculated the days,” said the one in the middle. “But no mind, we’re still having demigods for dinner.”

 

The one on the left leapt towards them, blond hair flying behind her. Annabeth drew out her bone sword at stuck it at her stomach before Will and Piper had a chance to move. It let out a high-pitched screech as golden dust leaked out the hole, and only just before it disappeared,did it turn back into an empousa.

 

The bus driver started screaming and Piper charmtalked to calm him down. “Shh, you’re just imagining all this. Just keep your eyes on the road like a good little bus driver.”

 

The two remaining girls looked unimpressed and more importantly, still stunningly beautiful. “Why do they still look human?”asked Will, a bronze staff in the shape of a snake, suddenly in his hand

 

“Hazel said the mist was really strong here, remember?” she eyed the two teenage girls. They were blocking the way to the door and it was too cramped for a full-blown fight, she’d have to lure them towards her, one by one.

 

They seemed to have the same idea. “Aww don’t be like that, handsome,” purred the one on the left. It jutted out her breasts provocatively and started to charmtalk. “Come here and I’ll show you how to feel real good.”

 

Gods, she thought. In Athena’s name, wear a bra.

 

Will lurched forwards before she could stop him. The empousa, thinking she’d been able to lure him, walked towards him, reaching out. Instead, the snake headed knob of Will’s staff slammed into her head,

 

“You’re right, this does feel good.”

 

Relieved, Annnabeth asked, “You weren’t affected?”

 

“Nope.” He sounded amused at the suggestion.

 

Now she definitely felt better about him having seen her half naked.

 

Now out-numbered three to one, the empousa’s image wavered and turned to its original form. It made to move, but Piper spoke first.

 

“Look to your left!” It did and Will jumped out of the way while it was distracted

 

“Proud of your meager talents, child of Aphrodite?” It hissed at Piper. “We’ll see how long you can be so cocky. Our mistress’ presence will surge today. Even now, she is watching a powerful half-blood. He eludes him now, but when the festiv-“

 

“What half-blood?” asked Will, alarmed.

 

“I thought Hecate was your mistress?” asked Piper.

 

“Hecate is our mother, but we worship the goddess of charmspeak herself. Try defying her charms, puny half-blood.”

 

The goddess of charmspeak? Annabeth racked her head. Aphrodite was the only one she could think of, but she couldn’t be it. It must be some minor god under her domain. Only one way to find out.

 

“There’s a goddess of charmspeak? It’s time we had a goddamn goddess of poodle ΗΔΟΝΟΘΗΚΗη.” Piper said.

 

The empousa screeched. “How dare you mock the name of my mistress! I would like to see you suffer the wrath of your own mother, but no matter, I will destroy you myself!” It pounced, but Annabeth was quicker. The bone sword entered through her shoulder blade. She pulled it out by kicking its torso, and the empousa disintegrated.

 

Will whooped. He turned to Piper. “What was that about poodle cunt?”

 

“Oh, if you want to get info from a monster you insult it about it until it gets mad and screams at you. Only way there is. They’re not really bright.”

 

He whistled. “Piper Mclean, you’re a badass.”

 

“It’s just for the job.” Piper blushed, obviously taking it as a compliment.

 

Annabeth smirked. “If you think that’s badass, you should hear Nico going at it. I remember when we first met, he told a manticore to take his army and shove it up his ass. He was ten. Well, Hades _is_ the god of curses.”

 

“Really? Nico cusses?” Piper asked.

 

“Didn’t you ever hear him?” Annabeth said, the Lump in the back of her head was back- the feeling that she’d lost something important without knowing what it was.

 

“I don’t think I really heard him say anything much, actually.”

 

This dispelled the euphoria of victory and dragged them back to reality.

 

“Do you think that half-blood is Nico?” asked Will. He twisted the snake head on his staff and it turned back into the handle of his doctor’s bag

 

“Maybe,” said Piper. “But what would a goddess of charmspeak want with Nico?" Annabeth agreed. Nico didn’t exactly go around sweet-talking and spouting niceties.

 

And as for the goddess having something to do with Aphrodite…

 

“I think I remember.” said Annabeth. Was it really just yesterday that she’d been at her desk, looking it up on her laptop and her books? It hadn’t resurfaced at once, because charmspeak wasn’t the reason her name had come up while researching. “It must be Peitho. The goddess of charmspeak and seduction. She’s an intimate companion of Aphrodite.”

 

“Doesn’t sound like she has much to do with Nico. Maybe it’s some poor Roman kid who got lost from his legion.” Will said, hopeful.

 

Annabeth shook her head, the Lump now bigger than ever. “And she’s also the goddess of rape.”

 

 

 

By now the bus driver had a wild look in his eyes and was repeatedly singing ‘row row row your boat’ to himself like a mantra. They got off for his sanity’s sake.

 

“Do you think he’ll be all right? He thinks he saw three teenage girls being murdered.” Will said worriedly.

 

“He’ll be fine,” she assured him. “We’ve killed bigger stuff in front of mortals.”

 

They walked to the next stop to get on another bus. “They said Peitho was still watching him, all we have to do is find him before she does.” Will said.

 

“Couldn’t Nico have shadowtravelled again?”

 

“Not if he knows what’s good for him. He might not even be tangible, or worse, conscious. It was a big jump to new Orleans.”

 

“They said something about a festival. What do you think it is?” Piper said, changing the subject. Nico, as a child of one of the big three, attracted monsters like fruit flies to a half-rotten banana in July. If he was unconscious…Annabeth didn’t want to think about that. She only hoped that Will, like pretty much everyone who hadn’t seen Nico in direct action, had hugely underestimated his powers.

 

None of them knew what the festival was, so they decided to take a detour at a Walgreen they came across to find out. There were enough pediatricians on the street by now, but they doubted they’d be willing to give much detail to a couple of teenagers. They bought food, and Will stacked up on band aids. When they asked the cashier, a middle-aged woman, if there was any festival in the city going on, she gave them an appraising look before saying,“You might catch the parade if you hurry. There is other stuff as well, but…How old are you?”

 

“Eighteen,” she and Piper answered immediately. If there was one thing you found out from a quest, it’s that people didn’t trust underage teenagers. Actually, they didn’t trust you even if you said you were older, but that was probably from the gore and grime you accumulated.

 

“…Me, too.” Will said.

 

She didn’t look very convinced at this, but Will gave her an easy grin, and his 6 feet height must have helped as well.

 

She gave him a pamphlet. Annabeth thought it a bit strange that she’d hand it especially to Will when he was farther in the back. While the cashier scanned the items, Will opened the pamphlet. He must have been less dyslexic than most demigods, because his eyes bugged out in a second. Piper looked over, and she started giggling after she deciphered the words.

 

Will regained his calm and pointed to the back of the pamphlet at the map. “The festival happens right next to cemetery number 1. I think we should try there instead.”

 

It wasn’t out of their way and they agreed to change course. They checked the bus service as well and decided on a route.

 

“Here, we’ll go IM Hazel. Meet us at the bus stop outside.” Piper handed Will her credit card. “Have fun.” She pointed at the pamphlet and gave him a grin.

 

She dragged her to the bathroom, snorting all the way.

 

“What is it?

 

“Just some stuff fit for a goddess of seduction.” She smiled. “I think some manifestations of my mother and her Erotes might be here, too. Especially Eros.”

 

“Which festival is it?”

 

“The Southern Decadence. But I think you should ask Will about the details.”

 

Annabeth gave in to this enigma. Piper put her finger on the tap, so that the water sprayed out, and Annabeth threw in a drachma.

 

Hazel was talking with Reyna in the image. Hazel’s eyes were still red, and a small frown was on Reyna’s face. She told them about Peitho, which she didn’t really want to do, but she wanted to get more information on the goddess, she was aware that small details often determined the success or failure of a quest.

 

Reyna sent one of her attendants to get a book on Greek mythology, and read it to herself as Hazel asked about the details of their quest. When she was done, Reyna looked up. “Peitho is the goddess of persuasion before she’s anything else. I doubt she’d be violent.”

 

Hazel visibly relaxed. Reyna turned to her. “Could Ihave a minute alone? I need to discuss some private matters.”

 

She ordered her attendants out as well. There was the sound of door shutting, and Reyna turned back to face her. The small frown was now a full-blown expression of frustration. She ran the palm of her hand down her face. “What does she want?” she said angrily.

 

“You know what happened.” Annabeth said. She felt inexplicably jealous. Reyna reminded her of herself a lot. How had Nico opened up to her in a few weeks when he hadn’t to her in years?

 

“I only found out by accident. A blackout.”

 

“So did I.” It was technically a lie, but there wasn’t enough time for the truth. Also, Reyna would kill Piper.

 

Reyna nodded, and cut to the chase. “I don’t see why Peitho might choose to harm Nico. Again.” She grimaced. “Only when she is accompanied by Bia, the goddess of force, does she stand for rape. Perhaps she’s only watching him to put him on a quest. I hear Greek deities often address individual heroes. But whatever reason she wants him for, make sure not to anger her. She’s peaceful by nature, but you know firsthand how gods can act when they can’t get what they want.”

 

Annabeth nodded. “I’ll call if I need your assistance.

 

“And I shall be happy to give it.”

 

She ended the message and found Piper raising an eyebrow at her.

 

“What?”

 

“You two sound like Percy and Jason. Only less stupid, of course.”

 

“I don’t know what you mean.”

 

“Well, Percy’s obviously jealous Jason’s being big brother on Nico.”

 

They led their way outside. “I’m not jeal-" It was selfish of her to feel this way about Reyna. There was a reason Nico’s fatal flaw was holding grudges. Unlike Percy and her, Jason and Reyna would be starting on a clean slate, unconstrainedby past mistakes of apathy. Nico had no grudges against them, they were better suited to the role of overbearing older siblings. She and Percy would try as well, because sibling affections were, in truth, the only normal relationship Nico had managed to hold so far. But the fact remained that they had failed their test, and as much as they would try, their object could never stray far from redemption.

 

She sighed and sought to change the subject.

 

“Piper, you said, before we left, that Nico and Will weren’t ready. I get Nico isn’t, but how did you mean about Will?”

 

There was a pause before she answered, “You know how you keep saying you want to fix Nico? Will’s a healer. What do you think he sees when he sees Nico?”

 

“Someone to heal?”

 

Piper made a noncommittal shrug. “I don’t pretend to know what people think. But it makes sense, don’t you agree? It’s not a bad sentiment either, there has to be attraction before love, and most attractions are much more superficial and selfish than Will’s.”

 

They could see Will standing at the bus stop. “It’s that there are repercussions to having specific expectations about other people. Sometimes you have to change your ideals, sometimes it’s the other person who has to change. You can understand that right?”

 

Unlike her fellow siblings, Piper didn’t like to stick her nose in peoples’ relationships, and Annabeth understood that she really just wanted this to work out. “Please, Piper. It took me five years to smarten Percy up enough to make him kiss me.” She didn’t tell her it also took her five years to realize Percy was more than the savior she’d tried to make out of him. She was okay with him being just Percy.

 

Piper smiled. “If this were any other case I’d say this is actually a good start, but this is Nico we’re talking about. I don’t want Will to be just another factor for his abandonment issues. Will has to see Nico’s not just a broken thing he can fix with his love, he’s his own person." Annabeth wondered if she’d gotten all this out of her own experience. Juno had planted memories of Jason in Piper’s mind, and she’d had trouble at first trying to match up Jason in her mind with Jason in the flesh.

 

Will turned towards them, calling at them to hurry up. Annabeth could see the bus coming up from the street.

 

“Just in time,” he said. The empousi must have made cleared out the mortals on their last bus, since this one was much fuller. They all squeezed in at the back.

 

Will still had the pamphlet in his hand and Annabeth pointed at it. “So what exactly is Southern Decadence?”

 

“It’s basically gay mardi gras. Parades, street parties, the whole deal. In fact, there’s a float parade going on right now, a couple blocks away from the cemetery.”

 

That seemed straightforward. Or not. _Did she just make a pun? She must be more tired than she’d thought_. “Okay. But what was that about Aphrodite and Eros?” she asked Piper.

 

She grinned, and asked Will for the pamphlet. She gestured at the columns, and Annabeth read, Friday- Float Parade, Amateur Strip Club Night.

 

Her eyes travelled up. Thursday- Welcome Party, Big Dick Cont-

 

“Ah…Yes, I do think Eros might be here somewhere.” Annabeth handed him the pamphlet back, aware of the inordinate amount of time she’d spent it with due to her dyslexia.

 

“It’s not just what you’re thinking,” smirked Piper. “Eros also oversees homosexual love. And I know for a fact that my mother loves gay pride. Celebration of the freedom to love whomever, and all that.”

 

“Okay. So I’m guessing Peitho was here for the event, and Nico caught her attention at the cemetery.”

 

“That seems plausible. Let’s get in there, grab him, and take him to Mrs. O’Leory before Peitho gets her hands on him.”

 

Will coughed. “But what if he refuses to come?”

 

Annabeth frowned. “That’s actually possible. Will, what exactly did you do?”

 

“Well that’s kinda between Nico and-“

 

“Did you kiss him?” cut in Piper.

 

“...No. I wouldn’t. I’m not that stupid.”

 

“What did you do then? You gotta tell us or I’ll have no excuse to stop Jason from electrocuting you.”

 

“You don’t need to threaten me.” Will said. “I was making sure that…we were on the same page, you know?”

 

Piper smiled softly but Annabeth asked, “Couldn’t you have waited a bit more till you started flirting with him?”

 

Will threw up his hands. “Yes, thanks for reminding me how my year-old crush is actually homophobic. I knew he was from the 1930s, but I seriously didn’t think he’d take it this bad.” He ran his hands through his mop of blonde hair.

 

Something clicked. “You insinuated he liked you. You maybe joked about it?”

 

“Well that’s what flirting is, isn’t it?” He sighed.“I screwed up big time. It’s just that I thought he might be more invested to staying at camp if he knew someone cared for him. I didn’t want him to leave again.”

 

Piper had been right. Will’s attraction had a lot to do with him wanting to help Nico. Even his flirting had an ulterior motive. It hadn’t worked- Nico must have thought Will had found out about his sexuality, or worse, about his love for Percy, and that he was making fun of him about it. With his social grace of a road-kill, there was no way Nico could recognize flirting if it hit him in the face. He probably didn’t even know what the word meant.

 

“Well, this is actually better than anything I imagined you’d done. I’d figured you pulled a percy on him.”

 

“It is? And are we going to use that phrase from now on, pull a percy?”

 

“I think he’d be willing to come with us once you talk to him.”

 

“Uh…I’m not entirely sure about that.”

 

Annabeth hesitated, wondering how much to tell him. She couldn’t be the one to out Nico, but she didn’t want Will thinking he didn’t have a chance with him. “Will, Nico’s not…” She was going to say homophobic, but that would have been a lie. She’d firsthand felt his overpowering shame for being gay, the sense of violation that had been instilled into him. “I really think you’re misinterpreting Nico’s actions.”

 

“Well, putting his own health at risk just to get away from me as much as possible seems to be a pretty good indicator.”

 

“Will, I think you know Nico’s not very social.” She didn’t need an answer for that. “But I think you should understand ‘unsocial’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. Nico had virtually no interaction with anyone but for his sister for seventy years of his life. And then for the last four years, he’s had minimum human contact.”Her Lump churned up at this thought. She really should have tried more to reach out for him.

 

“Are you trying to tell me that’s the reason why I should give up on him? Not that I haven’t heard it from plenty others, but I really thought that you were better than this.”

 

She rolled her eyes, frustrated, “No, you freaking idiot. Ugh, you take this over, Piper, I’m no relationship advisor.”

 

“Will, I believe in love.” Piper stuck her tongue out at her for making an incredulous face at this.

 

“Err…love is really kind of a strong word, I mean it’s not like we…”

 

“Shut up Will, I’m speaking generally here. Like I said, I believe in love. I can’t help it, really. And I know that it’s very tempting to think that love will fix every problem, like how a true love’s kiss will turn a frog into a prince or wake a princess from an enchanted sleep, yada yada yada.” Will tried to cut in but she waved him off.

 

“And it’s true in a way that love can change people dramatically for the better, but don’t expect it to happen in an instant. Nico has problems opening up to people, and he’s going to make mistakes. Maybe even he doesn’t know what he wants, or maybe he doesn’t yet have the communicative capacity to tell you what he wants. Either way, please don’t take all this as a dismissal, at least until Nico makes it clear that it is.”

 

Annabeth watched him contemplating all this. As much as her own guilt induced her to believe Will could heal all of Nico’s troubles away, there had to be more people in Nico’s life than just the one lover. She and Percy still had to atone for their negligence, and perhaps some others, like Piper, would decide to atone for their hostility. Still, if there was anyone patient enough to handle Nico, it was Will.

 

Annabeth gave him a pat on the shoulder. “I like you, Will. Heck, you saved my life a couple of times. I wish you luck. Nico’s a great kid, even if a lot of people are too dumb to see it.”

 

“I know. He’s a real hero, he just stays out of the limelight. It’s really annoying how people forgot the stuff he pulled at the Battle of Manhattan.”

 

“Preaching to the choir, am I?” she couldn’t help but give him a huge smile. “So…year-old crush, huh?”

 

Piper grinned, and Will’s ears went red.

 

He coughed, turned towards the windows on the other isle, and said, in an obvious attempt to change the subject, “What’s with the traffic? It’s a total road block, must be the festival.”

 

At this, a man sitting diagonally from them looked up from the conversation he was having with his companion. He seemed to be in his early twenties. “You're going to the decadent?”

 

The guy sitting next to him looked up as well, and was definitely checking Will out.

 

“We’re going to Saint Louis Cemetery, actually,”Said Will easily.

 

“You’ll get there faster if you get out now and walk across the French Quarter, though you’ll have to cut through the decadence for that.”

 

The bus was nearing the stop. Will thanked them and ushered her out of her seat.

 

“You know, if you decide you’re done with looking at graves, we’ll be at the bar at Burbon street, it’s called-“

 

“He’s fifteen.” Annabeth deadpanned at him.

 

Will looked pretty happy with himself as they walked to the festival. She thought of saying something, and then figured he’d needed an ego boost after Nico ran out on him today. Loud music and cheering could be heard from a block away, and there was a steady stream of people going to and from the direction they were headed. They reached the edges of the crowd, and they saw the float parade going through.

 

“Should we try another route?” asked Piper. She looked nervous now. Annabeth understood. The empousi had said that the goddess’strength would surge with the festival. The crowd was huge, and there was a general drunken party feel about the air.

 

She pointed to the float farther down the rainbow flag laden street, decorated with huge plastic flowers and white doves, and carrying what looked like a purple shed on top of it. “No, let’s wait it out. I think that’s the last one. The police are letting people in the streets after that one passed, see?”

 

They pushed their way into the crowds. People had colorful strings of beads around their necks, and many were shouting, holding their hands out for the people on the floats to toss the beads to them. There were more than an average number of topless guys in the crowd, including one standing directly in front of her, and she got more body hair in her face than she’d ever hoped as he reached out for beads.

 

She turned her face away to get away from it, and she caught the expression on Will’s face. He wasn’t looking up at the float but a little beneath it, slightly wistful, a little wondering. She followed his gaze and saw two men side by side. The one on the left had his head on the other’s shoulder, his hand in the back pocket of the other’s jeans. The other man, in turn, had his arm wrapped around his boyfriend’s waist. As she watched the man on the left pointed at a krewe float rider and reached to whisper in the other’s ear.

 

Will, like her, was one of the year rounders. Camp would never persecute anyone for the sake of him being gay (anyone who’s read enough Greek mythology could see why) , but it was never a subject that was talked about, mostly because it was outweighed by the more immediate matters like the apocalypse, or the proximity of their sudden and violent deaths. Still, in her almost ten years of living there, there hadn’t been one gay couple to out themselves. She’d honestly never thought much about it, but Will must have.

 

She wished Nico was here as well, amidst the pride flags. How many years would it take for him to be able to touch Will like that in public? How many years would it take to throw off the self-corrosive, anachronistic ignominy?

 

The crowd cheered and she looked up to see the last float coming in. Now that it was closer, she saw that they had a Roman theme going on, and that the purple installment she had taken for a shed was supposed to be something like a temple. Which was architecture-wise incorrect in so many ways than that it was purple, as the bottom was painted Roman, with composite order columns, but the top was Greek, with a pop-and lintel roof. She tried not to let this fact irk her too much as she watched the krewe throwing beads. All of them had gaudy gold-spray painted laurel wreaths on their heads.

Four men were wearing what was supposed to be togas that looked like misshaped bed-sheets. The other two were dressed in long Greek chitons, but whereas the dress of the onefacing them was consistent to the bed-sheet regime, the chiton belonging to the one facing away from her was impeccable.

 

She was watching the gauzy material, simultaneously wondering if they’d been on a tight budget and could only afford one proper dress, and preparing to push through the crowd once the float passed, when the tall figure turned to face her.

 

She found Annabeth’s eyes immediately in the crowd. Annabeth was transfixed, unable to let go. Her eyes were a rich shade of burgundy, but they couldn’t be, people’s eyes didn’t come in that shade…Unless she wasn’t _people_. She threw her a string of beads and she caught it. The woman was smiling at her, and Annabeth had to see, had to get close, had to…

 

She wrenched her eyes away and grabbed Will by his elbow. “Run!” she said to him and Piper.

 

They didn’t have to be told twice. The three wove their way through the crowd, pushing people in their haste. Piper knocked over someone’s drink from his hand, and Annabeth only half heard the indignant yell from behind them. There were two police officers in bikes behind the float, but they ignored their shouts as they crossed the street to the other half of the crowd. Annabeth didn’t know why they were running, only that the woman’s smile had made her want to relinquish everything she owned, even herself. She knew how some women would expose their breasts for beads during mardi gras. Just now, she could have done more.

 

There were less and less people as they ran, and by the time they ducked into a corner to a vacant alleyway, the hubbub was a distant muffle. She leaned against the brick wall, gasping for breath. Next to her, Piper slid to the ground with her back on the wall and put her head on her knees, taking gulps of air.

 

“What was it?” Will asked as soon as he regained his breath.

 

Annabeth looked down at her palm where the beads she’d been holding had left round red indents. She’d been grasping the beads the whole time she was running without her noticing. “The woman on the float…she…I don’t think she was a monster…I think she was Peitho.”

 

There was a flash of blinding white. Annabeth scrambled to a fighting stance, covering her eyes. When the light receded to a lambent glow, she opened her eyes to see the woman on the float. The light faded, but she still seemed incandescent in the dingy alley. Annabeth cursed inwardly. Names had power. All that running to get away from the goddess, and she has to call her out.

 

Peitho stood taller than Will. Her chiton was so thin it was half transparent, and though her torso was wrapped in an underlayer of dark red satin, she could clearly see the outline of her long legs. A sash, the same material as her chiton, starting from her wrists, was wrapped around her broad shoulders, where her dark auburn hair cascaded down in soft ringlets. She had a pronounced jaw, and her lips were painted a deep red. If the goddess could ever be condescended to be subject to biological sexes, Annabeth had an idea which it would be. She couldn’t, however, and any judgment Annabeth acknowledged was that she had a striking, androgynus beauty about her, as if she had chosen the best features from both biological sexes. Annabeth smelled musk in the air, not the distilled, combined form in perfumes, but musk itself, heady and potent.

 

“Smart girl.” She met her eyes, and they indeed were burgundy.“I’ve been meaning to meet with you all. So kind of you to visit.” Her voice was a husky tenor, in a voice range Annabeth subconsciously associated with transgender women on hormones. She’d honestly never thought it particularly attractive, but the voice was rich and thick, as enticingly real as a hand on her waist. “I enjoy these festivals. These beads, here, they’re used as a bartering tool.” She slid her hand down the strings of beads hanging from her neck. “To get them, perhaps words will suffice, sometimes a little more flesh. A précis of seduction, if there ever was one. Why did you run, though? One might think you didn’t _want_ …to talk.” For some reason the way she said ‘want’made Annabeth tense up in the stomach.

 

“Why did you want to meet us?” she asked. “Is this about…” She wouldn’t say his name. She'd learnt her lesson. Names had power.

 

“Yes, the taken one. He eludes me. I know he is close, but he hides amongst the shadows and the remnants of death. They make it harder to pinpoint him.” She smiled. “To hide a tree, put it in a forest, they say. I thought perhaps you could help me find him.”

 

“Why would we help you find him?”said Will.

 

She turned her dark eyes on him. “You are the reason he is here, is it not? Your advances would certainly benefit from my blessings.”

 

“How do you…?”

 

“Your attempt at seduction was that alerted me to his presence at the moment. Though I admit I have been watching him for some time now.”

 

She rolled the beads in her hand. “I am the successor of Eros, but the precursor of Anteros. Persuasion and seduction are the keystones to having your love reciprocated.”

 

“If you want me to …woo him, why are you trying to grab him?”

 

“To help, nothing more.”

 

They exchanged doubting glances at this. There were benevolent gods, but they were always fickle, and as for the reasons for their actions, their own entertainment surpassed any empathy they may have for demigods. “Help? But he…you’re the goddess of rape. You haven’t exactly helped him out.”

 

Peitho’s eyes narrowed. “You misunderstand. I only stand for rape when I am truly …beside myself. You could say I become the very thing I oppose. Are you aware of how I am usually depicted?”

 

“Fleeing from rape.”Annabeth recounted.

 

“Exactly. Have you ever wondered how, despite everything else that is thrown to you demigods, occasions of sexual assaults are so far and between? Aphrodite, the erotes and I, we all have a fondness for demigods. Your love is as strong as your lives are short. We make sure your love lives are interesting, but we take care not to extirpate them, that would defeat our very purpose. Rape is the very thing I stand against, a shortcut that must not exist. I know the very extent of its capacity to destroy, and I deter the minds of the rash from imposing themselves to the unwilling. You had a close shave, dear, when you were fourteen.”

 

That was when she was kidnapped while trying to stop the Titan army from recruiting the di Angelos.

 

“Your friend, however, the taken one, he was assaulted where no god may enter. What happened was in no way my design, but I still feel the need to compromise.” Annabeth found herself nodding along, and then stopped herself. Peitho sounded convincing, but she was the goddess of charmtalk. Perhaps her words rang true to her because the guilt and the need for repentance towards Nico were drawn out of her own mind. Was it true? Was Peitho using Annabeth’s own thoughts to persuade her?

 

“But your servants, the empousi, they attacked us.”

 

“Urgh, they’re my groupies. Hecate won’t take responsibility of them anymore, so they’re clamoring at me for attention."

 

“Why do you call him that, the taken one?”

 

“Because he was. I am the goddess of wants, my dear. There are so many ways of persuasion, but the principal is the same. Knowing want you want, then showing what the other wants. The child has been stripped of his wants for so long, he has forgotten they can be granted. He has been taken the capacity even to know what he wants. I shall fix this, once you hand him over to me.” Her lips stretched to a perfect smile.

 

Annabeth wanted to say yes. Peitho was offering to eradicate the effects rape had had on Nico, and perhaps more- his sense of shame, or his homophobia, perhaps. She could see the others nodding along. Then she remembered Peitho’s phrase, showing what the other wants. They wanted Nico to be happy, and she was feeding this thought. Charmspeak worked best when the listener did not recognize that it was charmspeak.

 

“Thank you, Peitho, but I do not think Nico would want someone to mess with his mind.”

 

Again, she thought. Hades had removed Nico’s memories in the Lethe so that he may not remember watching his mother die. It had caused him a world of confusion and subsequential pain.

 

She laughed, and her prominent adam’s apple bobbed on her long neck. “Did I not say that the child does not know what he wants? But I do. I want him.”

 

Annabeth’s mind slipped out of her control. If Peitho wanted Nico, she should have him. She should oblige to her needs. She should…

 

Annabeth shook her head, trying to clear her mind. It’s all charmspeak. Ignore it.

 

“I don’t think we can help you, Peitho. I’m sorry but we must be going along.” Piper laced her words with charmspeak, and though it wasn’t as powerful as the goddess’, it was potent enough to encourage Annabeth to slowly draw her bone sword. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Will opening his mouth to protest at Piper’s words and Piper stamping on his foot.

 

Peitho looked at her sword, and her eyes were suddenly bright in anger. “You would use force against me?”

 

“Let us go, and we won’t.” She got to her fighting stance, sword reached out before her.

 

“Force, to oppose me?” Peitho said.

 

Something that had been constrained in Annabeth snapped at that moment, and she swung. She hadn't moved to attack, only to warn, but as suddenly as an attic window being opened, wind was coming down towards them from the sky, as if someone up in the havens was blowing at them. She felt a rush of texture against her face and arms, as if feathery wings had brushed past her. She peered past the winds, and thought she saw the thin outline of a winged figure descending upon Peitho. Bia, goddess of force, the attendant of Zeus. Peitho was trying to break free of Bia’s hold, her long, graceful arms holding the transparent goddess at bay.

 

Her hands were hot, and Annabeth looked at the string of beads in her hand to see the thread connecting them together glowing. Peitho’s attribute was a magical ball of binding twine, she remembered, she must have used it to thread the beads together. Before she could throw it to the ground, she looked up in desperation, and met Piper’s eyes. Unguided by any conscious thought, her hands were thrusting it at her, and Piper caught it instinctively.

 

She had often admired Piper’s features. It was hard not to, really, she was a beauty to anyone’s eyes. Only now, it felt as if all she’d ever admired were being amplified to confusingly huge proportions. She had a great body, curves in all the right places. Her breasts weren’t large but the graceful arc her figure drew, descending from her bust to her hips was suddenly as awe-inspiring as the truss arches of the Golden Gate Bridge. She watched her face, where normally her eyes were the most obvious attraction, but her nose…She had a curved, prominent nose, a legacy of her Cherokee bloodline, that unexpectedly set her feminine features to balance, and magnified her charms. Annabeth found herself wanting to touch it. What would it feel like, to be forehead to forehead, nose to nose with her? Their breaths would meet in the air between them, they would be breathing each other. What would it feel like to kiss her? Would Piper’s nose graze her cheeks as she licked Piper’s lips?

 

There was a burning in her, to find out if all she imagined were real. But in the end, the one accustomed to a decade of self-restraint wasn’t the one to breach the distance. Piper took a step forward, her eyes at half-mast, and it was a look that was so foreign to her Annabeth had no choice but to lean in, face facing upwards at that prominent nose. Their lips met, and Piper’s hands were at her waist, the pressure digging into her flesh . She had to strain her neck further because of Piper’s nose was a little in the way, and the strain unbelievably rousing. She tasted like strawberry chapstick, and Annabeth sucked at her lower lips, trying to get more of it. Her lips opened a bit in her urgency, and Piper’s tongue was sliding into her. Annabeth’s arms circled around Piper’s neck, pulling her closer.

 

She thought she could feel someone trying to push them apart, shouting at them, but it didn’t matter as Piper licked her palate, making her shiver all over. The movements of Piper’s tongue were delicate, waltzing around hers with a slow deliberation that had her sucking her back, pushing her torso against her. She was sharply aware of Piper’s breast pressing into her, and her spine tingled with the thought of touching them. Piper must have had the same thought, for her hands were moving up from her waist, caressing the outer parts of her breasts. Annabeth moaned at this, and imagined what it would be like to suck Piper’s erect nipples. This thought had her moving her hands to pull at Piper’s shirt, groping at it clumsily.

 

Then suddenly she was all too aware that she was sticking her tongue down the throat of her (probably) straight best friend. She pulled them apart. The string of beads was in Piper’s hand, glowing no more. She grasped it, threw it to the ground, and trampled it.

 

Stumbling two steps back, she scanned the surroundings. The wind had abated, and even the outline of Bia was gone. Instead, Peitho was flickering, white light surrounding her going on and off. Her eyes were switching burgundy and black every split second. Will was standing right in frontof her, hand grasping his doctor’s staff, shock evident in his face. Annabeth realized he must have attacked Peitho with it.

 

Her hindbrain kicked in, the purpose of the adrenaline coercing through her veins shifting from sexual urges to survival instinct. She shouted, and they were running once more, away from the goddess of seduction, soon to be the goddess of rape. They could see the cemetery, and she turned to Will, raising her eyebrows. Will gave a firm nod. They might perhaps have let the goddess of seduction have her way with Nico, but they would never, ever, let the goddess of rape have him. Peitho had said he was close, and amongst the remnants of the dead. Maybe that he wasn’t here, but there was as good a chance as any that he was, and she could not retreat with the possibility gnawing at her mind.

 

The cemetery was closed, of course. They scaled the iron grate fence, putting good use to their climbing skills earned from the lava wall at camp. Piper dropped beside her. “Peitho will be following us. Couldn’t we be leading her straight to Nico?”

 

Annabeth found it hard to face her, the feeling of her tongue in her mouth was still too real. She pushed her embarrassment out of her mind, there were things to be done and not enough time to do them. “We’re here to check if he’s here. If he isn’t, we’ll stop Peitho from searching him out. If he is, we’ve got to warn him and hold Peitho back while he escapes.”

 

The cemetery was only one block, but there were thousands of vaults, and she sent Will and Piper along the two alleys to their left, while she took to the one on the right, the one harboring the largest number of vaults.

 

Annabeth could see why Hazel said this place was beautiful. The graves were above-ground vaults, and under the moon light, their large slabs of white marble shone in a soft halo. There was something calming about the place, a sense of orderliness that went beyond the melancholy tranquility typical to a cemetery. Each grave, alignedin neat, consecutive rows, reminded Annabeth of a suburban neighborhood. The graves themselves were akin to little houses themselves, or perhaps more befittingly, shrines. She ran along the graves, shouting for Nico, and she could hear her two friends doing the same.

 

In a few minutes,she reached the end of her own sector, without a single sign of the raven haired boy. He wasn’t here after all. Relief spread down to the end of her toes. He wasn’t in immediate danger. For the moment, they only had to worry about their own safety.

 

She was turning back to the point where they’d split up when she heard Piper scream, “No, Jason, what are you-“

 

Annabeth turned on her heels and ran to where she’d heard the shout. She couldn’t find her at first, but there was another scream, muffled this time, and she stepped behind a tombstone towards the sound.

 

Her brain didn’t process what she was seeing. Piper was being pinned to the ground, her shirt halfway up her stomach. A hand was clasped to her mouth, and she could faintly hear her screams between the fingers. Her legs were jerking, trying to break free of the knees that were pushing them into the earth, knees that belonged to…Percy?

 

Piper looked up at her with pleading eyes, and Percy followed her gaze to Annabeth. He grabbed Piper by the collar of her shirt and threw her haphazardly away. Whatever it was that wore Percy’s face, Annabeth knew it couldn’t be human, it was simply too strong. Piper’s head hit the marbled bottom of the tomb with a sickening thud, and as her eyes rolled back into her head, her body stopped moving.

 

Annabeth’s blood chilled. She wrenched her eyes from the sight of Piper’s lifeless body, and watched Fake Percy approaching her. She gripped her sword tightly. The thing smiled, and it was Percy’s smile, large and easy. She tasted bile in her mouth, and she swung her blade forward. Before it made contact with Percy’s neck, an invisible force knocked her off her feet. She cursed, rolled to the ground and was up in an instant. Her ribs ached, but nothing seemed to be broken. She held her stance, watching Fake Percy. The blow had come from a bit above him, and it had felt solid, like a limb. The mist was hiding its true form, and she knew for sure that it was much taller than she was. She had to get it to dispatch the mist before she could attack.

 

“What are you?” she shouted.

 

It rumbled in laughter. The sound came not from Fake Percy’s mouth, but somewhere above him, and the effect was that the voice seemed to be all around her. It spoke, **I am whom you desire, but I work for my desires only.** The voice was familiar. She would recognize it anywhere, it was the voice of the monster that had raped Nico.

 

She breathed, trying to find composure. Had it followed the goddess of rape? “What is this, riddles? Are you so afraid you hide behind the mist? Show yourself!”

 

Fake Percy moved. She felt a gust of air, and she swung at the general direction. Her sword made contact, and she felt something being chopped off. The thing screamed. The mist wavered, and thensettled back.

 

“You found him! Nico, we have to…why are you fighting him?” Will was here, looking confused at Fake Percy. The monster must have been showing itself to them as the person they desired most. Double illusions must have been harder, and the mist finally disappeared.

 

It was over ten feet tall. She looked up into its face, where it had a pug nose, long ears, and a black scraggly beard that matched its overgrown hair. It reminded her of the faces of the older satyrs, and the reminder made her sick to the core. On its stomach was a large, bloody hole, its edges ragged. Its hand was chopped off, but the earth was trickling back into its arm, very slowly mending it. Gaea may be unconscious, but the earth was still its mother.

 

“You’re one of Gaea’s giants. But... you weren’t part of the army.”

 

“I would have joined. I would have liked to rip the twin gods apart myself, do what Orion has failed to do. If not for them, I wouldn’t have had my innards eaten out everyday for the last millennia.” He pointed at the hole in his stomach. “But I was weakened. I was killed by your little halfblood friend just before the recruit, and regenerated too late.” It chuckled. “No matter. I never was motivated by higher causes like victory and failure. I have no regrets. How do you say it nowadays? Oh yes, he was one good fuck.”

 

Annabeth saw red. She ran towards its torso, ducking as the giant swung its arm at her. She reached the hole in the stomach, speared her sword in it, and dragged it across its insides. The giant roared in pain as yellow dust flowed out through it, much quicker than the earth could heal. Just when she thought she’d won, a short limb sprouted out from its torso and caught her in her shoulder.

 

She tried to catch herself up with her hands, but the force of the blow had her fall with her sword between her body and her wrist. She bit back a scream. The pain from her wrist was excruciating, her bones felt broken, if not shattered. Panting from the pain, she stood up with her sword on her left hand.

 

The giant would have trampled her if Will hadn’t kept it occupied with his staff. He was swinging it wildly, keeping the giant’s arms at bay from her. The giant grinned at Will, licking its lips. “Child of Apollo, you look just like your father. I’ll have fun imagining you as him, when I have you on your back, squealing for me.” Annabeth looked at the couple of limbs protruding and contracting from its body, and remembered how, in Nico’s flashback, the giant seemed to have several sets of limbs.

 

She tried to hold her sword steady, but the balance was off. She wished for her bronze knife again, she’d had plenty of practice using it with her left hand. Her bone sword was much heavier, and she wasn’t sure if she could swing it properly. She ran in anyway, going for the lower part of the giant, so as not to unbalance herself. She caught it in its thighs, and more dust fell out. Still, the giant stood his ground.

 

Her mind was going around in circles, looking for a tactic, but she couldn’t see one. Will had a fucking stick to fight with, and she could no longer attack faster than the thing could heal itself. “You’re Tityus. The giant who tried to rape Leto,” she said, hoping to distract it long enough to form a cognate plan in her head.

 

“Yes, and Apollo saved his mother by shooting me.” Tityus stomped his foot in anger at this, making the dust from his thighs fall faster. “Stupid woman. She ended up joining Gaea’s side anyway, after the gods mistreated her. She should have let me show her a good time from the first.”

 

Annabeth was only half listening. Even if she managed to disintegrate the giant, dragging an unconscious Piper to safety would take too long; it will be back on their heels. She would have to kill it. But giants could only be killed by demigods and gods working together. There was only one god she knew for sure was close by. It was a suicidal thought, but perhaps…

 

“Peitho!” She shouted. “I know you’re here. Show yourself.”

 

The air above the grave where Piper lay shimmered, and Peitho appeared. Her auburn hair was in disarray, as if someone had dragged her by the hair. Her white, gauzy chiton was ripped, the red satin wrapping her bosom was dislodged, and her milky white breast hung out. Her ADHD mind took note her aureole, large, puffy, and reddish brown. Thanks to Will slamming his staff on her head, she’d lost the fight against Bia.

 

_I become the very thing I oppose._

 

“Peitho, we’re sorry. Let’s talk this out. You don’t want Tityus raping us. You know you don’t.”

 

Peitho fixed her eyes on her, her irises black, and so huge, they seemed to swallow her entire eye. They had no focus, and her entire face contorted in agony. Annabeth thought of Athena wandering in a subway, sent out of her mind by the arguing between her Greek and Roman aspects. This was very similar to it. Peitho had said she was a goddess of wants. She must be battling inside her mind against her aspect as the goddess of rape, which, by definition, was the opposite of want. The moment she thought of her mother, Annabeth saw this was a lost cause. If the goddess of reason could not be reasoned with in her confused state, she could not see how she could reason with Peitho.

 

They were going to be raped, and then killed, she thought calmly. The eminence of her death was, as it had been since the age of seven, chillingly familiar. She embraced it, and so bequeathed herself the power to take this step. She watched Tityus occasionally thrusting its hand at Will, to be swatted away by his staff. The giant laughed in amusement.

 

“Will, get Piper.”

 

“You need m-“

 

“Get Piper, go to Camp Jupiter, form a bigger search party, and find Nico.” She sounded so assured, she could almost believe in the plan herself. Will looked at her, his blue eyes wide. Her heart swelled in affection for him and Piper. They deserved happiness, and she could be the one to give it to them.

 

“No, I’m not leaving you, we’re in this together.”

 

“I’m not asking for you to save yourself, I’m asking for you to save Piper. Let her see Jason, Will. Let her see her father again.”

 

“You take her, I’ll fight him off.”

 

“I’m not strong enough to carry her. You are. Plus, you can heal her once you’re out of here, get her on her own feet.”

 

“But…no, NO.”

 

She laid her sword in the ground, ignoring how vulnerable she felt.

 

“You want me?”she asked Tityus, meeting him in the eye. “I’ll feel better than Leto, you know how pregnancies can make them loose.”She held her arms in the air. “I’ll let you do it in both holes. I’ll scream like the virgin I am.”

 

She caught sight of Will at the ends of her peripheral vision, watching in shock. He had not, could not have expected this.

 

“Will, save Piper. I’m doing this whether you’re here or not, and I don’t want you to see this.”

 

Slowly, he nodded. Annabeth felt a layer of tranquility and certainty coming over her. She could do this. She only wished she could see Percy again, not the Fake Percy, but real Percy. But he would understand. He’d do worse for his friends.

 

She removed her shirt, in the slow, provocative way she’d seen in pornography. She threw it to the ground. “I bet you’ve never done it with someone willing. They say it feels so much better that way. I’ll move with you. I’ll squeeze when you want me to. Come get me.”

 

Tityus had been watching her critically, as if expecting it to be some kind of trap. It must have decided it would be worth it, because it now came at her. She watched the several limbs forming from its torso, and sent a silent prayer to her mother. _Please let Piper and Will get away safely. Please don’t let all this be in vain._

She closed as eyes as Ttiyus reached for her waist, anticipating the feeling of fingers grabbing at her jeans.

 

It never came. Instead came the sound of something exploding.

She opened her eyes. Tityus was on the ground, caught in a cage of piled human bones. Standing next to him, stabbing the giant with his black sword was…

 

“Nico!” shouted Will from next to Piper.

 

Nico’s eyes, however, weren’t on Will.

 

“ARE YOU FUCKING OUT OF YOUR MOTHER FUCKING MIND?” he screamed at her.

 

Annabeth felt weak on her knees. The world was beautiful, down to the yellow femur in front of her. She could have cried from jubilance, kissed everyone on sight. She didn’t, only put her shirt on, picked up her sword, and walked steadily to Tityus. “I was distracting him.”She said calmly.

 

The giant was even more stupid than she’d thought, because it turned to Nico and said, leering, “Back for more, little slut? I don’t take spoiled goods. You won’t be as tight.”

 

Nico sliced his head off, and he disintegrated.

 

“What…but…why are you even here?” he turned to her, in the manner that he couldn’t comprehend why someone would come looking for him.

 

She didn’t know if she wanted to slap him for that, or give him a hug. Instead, her rational thoughts caught up with her, and she said. “Nico, we have to leave now. She’s come for you.”

 

“She? Who’s-“

 

Peitho swooped down and caught his shoulders between her hands. Annabeth raised her sword, but now the winds were ascending from her, force itself, with enough ferocity to wrench her sword away. Her hair was flying crazily above her. Before she was forced to squeeze her eyes shut, she got a glimpse of Peitho’s eyes flickering back to burgundy. She had gotten what she wanted. She opened her mouth to shout, and the air was ripped out from her lungs, leaving her light headed.

 

She swung her sword before the winds even stopped, but there was nothing to hit. She blinked, her eyes dry. Peitho and Nico were gone. So was Piper. She looked at Will, and saw him staring at his hands, as if he couldn’t believe she had disappeared from right under his nose. The bones and the reforming pile of monster dust were gone as well. Peitho and Bia had, whether intentionally or not, aided them in Tityus’ destruction. The giant would stay dead.

 

Will called out Piper and Nico’s names. She joined in, but after while became aware of another sound.

 

“Shhhh.” She whispered. “Don’t you hear it?” She could hear, from the distance, a sound of someone singing softly. They ran towards it, their footsteps quiet and quick. Half a dozen aisles later, she could discern the words of the song.

 

It was a familiar song, but while the original aria was somewhat sad, Nico’s version was cheery, dispelled of its melancholy notes.

 

O mio babbinocaro, mi piace, è bello, bello.

 

She could come up with a rough translation for Italian through her latin.

 

Oh my beloved father

I love him, he is beautiful, beautiful.

 

The voice was Nico’s, but also not his. It was richer and smoother, as if Peitho was laying an undercurrent to the words.

 

“Nico!” Will called, but the song went on, undeterred. They saw a vault with a small figure perched on it, and ran towards it. Nico sat on top of the grave, his legs dangling off, which he swung back and forth childishly. He had Piper’s head on his lap, she looked to be still unconscious but unhurt.

 

The vault had a statue of an angel on it, and she wondered if the irony had registered on him. His eyes were closed as he sang, and his overgrown hair blew about to a non-existant breeze. He was dressed in a chiton, the fabric pure white, flowing loosely off his left shoulder. Serveral strings of bead hung from his neck. His skin shone alabaster white under the moon light, the effect ethereal. He could have been another angel, carved of marble.

 

Mi struggo e mi tormento O Dio, vorrei morir Babbo, pietà, pietà

 

I am suffering, tormented!

Oh god, I’d like to die.

Father, have pity, have pity.

 

Only when the song was finished did he open his eyes.

 

“Hey guys,” he called. His tone was buoyant, as if he were just greeting them at the dining pavilion.

 

“Nico, are you okay? What did Peitho do to you?” Will asked.

 

Nico laughed. Annabeth had heard Nico laugh before; humorlessly, mockingly, or sometimes in exhilaration from a fight. But never like this. His laugh bubbled joyfully, unbidden from his lips.

 

“Nothing happened. She just let me see how unimportant some thing were.”

 

“What things?”

 

“Oh. I don’t want to think about that.” Nico removed Piper’s head from his lap and laid it gently upon the gravestone. “All I know is that I haven’t been happy for a very, very long time.”

 

In one fluid movement, Nico dropped from the vault. His bare feet met the grass silently. Annabeth remembered the first time she’d met Hades, in the Underworld. She’d been reminded of a giant panther. The same feline grace shone through Nico now, unhindered by the usual awkwardness ubiquitous of every 14 year old.

 

“That’s not important. What’s important is that I get what I want. Right now.”

 

“What do you want?”she asked, and Nico faced her.

 

A tiny, shallow part of her mind, one that she rarely indulged, had thought that Will was a bit out of Nico’s league. She’d once wondered if Nico was attractive, because that’s what you did when you thought someone had a crush on you. She’d been dismissive, because that’s what you did when someone had a crush on you and you were in a relationship.

 

All that was blown away. She realized she’d been searching for the wrong things. Nico didn’thave Jason’s chiseled, handsome features, or Percy’s easy good looks. Instead she saw his too-large eyes framed by sharp, high cheekbones, the way his pointed chin highlighted those features, and saw an eerie beauty unnoticed beforehand.

 

“I don’t want a lot of things.” He said, pondering. “I want s’mores.” He concluded.

 

“S’mores?”

 

He nodded. “I always liked them. Conner told me how to make them, you know. I haven’t had them for years. You can’t have s’mores in the shadows, you have to be right by the fire to make them.”

 

The Lump was digging into her mind. She thought of the times she’d seen him sitting alone at the campfire.

 

“We’ll get you s’mores.” She whispered. “We’ll make sure you have s’mores everyday.”

 

She would do anything to get him s’mores. This Nico felt alive, like Before-Tartarus Nico, or perhaps more like Before Bianca’s death-Nico. She would do anything to see him this way. She wondered if this was all magic, as a recollection of Peitho’s words came to her. _Persuation is knowing want you want, and showing what the other wants._ Peitho was showing what she wanted, Nico vivacious and happy. But before she could chase that thought, Nico smiled, and she forgot all about it. His teeth were  wobbly, and very white.

 

“You will?” he bounced on the balls of his feet, and then looked thoughtful. “But not everyday. Everyday’s too much. Wanting too much hurts you.” He nodded at his own words. “I wanted Percy too much, it hurt me. It hurt me really, really bad. Percy didn’t hurt me. He wouldn’t, not on purpose.” She could hear the adoration thick in his voice and wondered for the hundredth time, how she could not have noticed. “But wanting him hurt me.”

 

She might have said he could have Percy too if he hadn’t continued. “It’s okay now. I’ve given up. You’re bad at sharing. You’re too good to be unhappy. I like you, even if you don’t really care about me.”

 

“But I-“

 

“I want birthday cakes!" he said, elated. The constant jump in attention reminded her of a small child. “I had them once. Percy gave it to me. I had three pieces.” He announced. “I was really hungry. I was sick of eating happy meals and candy bars and cheap stuff like that. They tasted good at first but not really, later. I only stole a little bit of money, you see, even though I’m good at it. Because Bianca always told me I shouldn’t.”

 

At this thought, his eyes glazed and his gaze drifted off to the sky. His smile slid off from his face and he looked liked himself again. “I want Bianca.”

 

No one spoke for a handful of heartbeats. Then Will stepped forward, his hand held out gracelessly in front of him.

 

Nico smiled and grasped his hand with both of his, his fingers slight and white against Will’s. Annabeth remembered how tightly Nico had grasped her fingers hours earlier, and the devastated look on his face when she’d pulled away.

 

“I want _you_.” She could hear Will taking in an audible intake of breath.

 

Nico paused, then shook his head vigorously, his hair whipping in his face. “No, I don’t want you. Everything I own gets broken.” He said this matter-of-factly, smile not leaving his face. “I don’t want you to get broken, you’re too- _lucente_.”

 

“I still want you to touch me.” He brought Will’s hands up to his cheek and leaned into it, closing his eyes.

 

“Touch me.” He said. Will was watching Nico, eyes eyes wide. His thumb moved slowly, brushing the top of Nico’s cheekbone. Nico hummed, and Annabeth was inadvertently reminded of a cat purring. He took another step, and leaned the other side of his face to Will’s chest. “See, it’s not too bad, is it?” he said beseechingly, and Annabeth’s Lump grew. “Bianca touched me all the time, then no one did, for years and years. Then something did and then I got scared of people touching me.”

 

He suddenly frowned and stepped back. “How do I smell, Will? Do I smell bad?”

 

“You smell- you smell good, Nico. Like smoke and ashes…and dry leaves.” He took a breath. “Dried walnut leaves.”

 

Nico seemed pleased at that. Annabeth remembered all the times she’d heard people say he smelled like death, as ambiguous a concept as that was. There was no way Nico, who moved as silently as a shadow, had not overheard.

 

He hummed again, and pushed his body up against Will, hands still grasping his.

 

“Touch me, Will. I want you to touch me.” He said breathlessly.

 

Will, in dramatic slowness, put a tentative hand on his arm.

 

“More,” Nico whispered. “I want more.” Will was breathing through his mouth, in shallow, halting breaths.

 

Nico’s pale, thin fingers reached up to his shoulder and undid the button in one snap. The cloth fell effortlessly to his feet. There was no suggestive deliberation, not like how she’d removed her shirt. The scene was as natural as someone undressing for a shower.

 

Scars crisscrossed Nico’s torso. He was startlingly thin, his ribs visible under taut skin, his hip and collar bones jutting out sharply. But there was an unexpected layer of muscle that rippled lithely with every movement. He reminded her, more than anything else, of Gaudi’s basilica, the Sagrada Familia, all angles and natural points, uncanny and wanting to novice eyes, but breathtakingly beautiful to the appreciative, only the more so for its incompleteness.

 

He was wearing a perizoma underneath, a greek loincloth that hid his front but only a little of his behind. She could see the entire length of his thighs, and part of his butt cheeks. Will ran his hands down from Nico’s shoulder, tracing his fingers where each spine stood out. Nico arched his back contentedly, closing his eyes.

 

Annabeth had, from pornography and others’ giggly talks behind hands, been instilled the idea of sex as something to be hidden, dark and mysterious. She saw now that those characteristics weren’t of sex itself, but only of the recalcitrant responses to the social stigma attached to it.

 

Nico was sex as its quintessence. His sole object was to be touched. Sex in itself wasn’t dirty; it was pure, honest towards the senses. It was a gateway to liberation, open as it was in its vulnerability.

 

Will wanted to see Nico vulnerable, she realized. Will wanted him to be frank towards Will and his feelings. This was what Will wanted to see, and what Peitho was showing him. Now that Nico wasn’t paying Annabeth any attention, the fuzz in her brain was starting to clear again.

 

Nico rubbed his face higher and higher against Will. He stood on tiptoe, so as to reach his bare neck. Will craned down to meet him, and they were cheek-to-cheek. He moved, inching closer to Nico’s lips.

 

“No,” she said, and her voice was so small even she could barely hear it. She couldn’t bear to stop something when it was making Nico happy, but the scene was so intimate. She should not see it. Nico would never want her to.

 

“No, stop it,” she said more loudly. Will hesitated, and Nico whined, pushing himself towards him.

 

She continued, fighting to dissert control over her hazy mind. “This isn’t you. You don’t want some goddess forcing your first kiss.” Nico might have been stripped of the magic of his first time, but she wouldn’t let his first kiss be taken as well.

 

Nico stepped down from his tiptoe and opened his eyes. “Isn’t this is what I want.”It was more of a statement than a question, and the words sounded horribly familiar. They’d once been spoken by Tityus in Tartarus.

 

“No, not like this. Never like this,” he whispered.

 

He stepped back and wrenched the beads from his neck. The strings began to glow, and she felt the urge to lunge for them. Nico took another step backwards, and reached towards the vault where Piper lay.

 

If she didn’t know any better, she would have said that the shadows themselves handed him his sword. Beads fell, strings cut.

 

Before the beads reached the earth, a hand appeared to cup them. Peitho stood up, one hand full of beads, the other holding a ball of string. A single string coiled up like a snake, and threaded the beads on its own accord. She calmly replaced the string of beads on her neck. Peitho was herself again, regal and seductive.

 

“I never wanted this.” Nico said, anger and shame once again back in his black eyes, building up to a raging fire towards the goddess.

 

“You needed it.”

 

Annabeth could see Peitho had meant want she said, she’d wanted to help him. She’d done it in the intrusive, unwanted method emblematic of the gods. Even for all their good intentions, they could not help rendering the single individual to a pawn for their means. In this case, Nico was to be the receiver of Peitho’s atonement, nothing more.

 

“Why would I need this? I never asked you for it. Why do you presume to know what I need?”His voiced hitched with every syllable. “Why?” he aimed the question at the goddess, but he might have been screaming it at every atrocity that had fucked with his life. It was a question Annabeth herself had wanted to ask the gods and the fates ever since she’d killed her first monster.

 

“You can have what you want, you have people who are willing to reciprocate. You no longer need fear rebuff. You know this now.” She said gently. She didn’t seem upset at Nico’s offence, only a little forlorn.

 

Nico was shaking in anger, the darkness curling out from under him.“Yes. But you shouldn’t have _made_ me say these things. Not again.” Not again?, Annabeth wondered.

 

“And definitely not in front of them.” He pointed at Will and her. He yellowed a large patch of grass.

 

“You would not have believed me otherwise. You would not trust me, for I know you are used to having things taken from you. Even though this time, I was bestowing something, not seizing,” she said.

 

Nico pointed his black sword at her. “Don’t you dare try to persuade me. I don’t care what you intended, this was wrong.”

 

“I’m sorry for what happened to you. I was showing you how to let go of-“

 

“Shut up. One more word, and I’ll show you what it’s like to be on the receiving end of pain. Leave. Now.”

 

“I never expected your gratitude, good medicine tastes bitter.” She smiled sadly. “But do not worry that this will be the last you see of me,” she started to glow, and they all covered their eyes. “I am always there for those who are honest enough to ask.”

 

The goddess was gone, but Nico stabbed vehemently at the ground where Peitho had stood seconds before.

 

Annabeth and Will exchanged a glance. Would Nico be angry at them? What if he refused to come with them?

 

“Nico.” Will placed a hand on his shoulder. Nico flinched visibly and almost gutted Will with his sword as he whipped around. He didn’t meet his eyes, instead went to fetch the disrobed chiton, now splattered with dirt. He tugged in on as Will carried Piper down from the vault.

 

“It’s just a concussion,”said Will, placing his hands on Piper’s head. She was laid out in the grass like some fairytale princess. “She’s mostly out from the shock.”Annabeth felt a weight disappear inside her. _They do say couples take after each other_ , she thought idly. At least it wasn’t as embarrassing as Jason’s brick incident.

 

He shook her awake. She woke up, bleary eyed, confused, murmured something about Jason. She accepted ambrosia from Will, and listened to their explanation about Tityus. By the time Annabeth was telling her about her offering herself as bait (she left this part as ambiguous as possible. If Piper guessed, she didn’t say anything.) she was looking fine, though still pale.

 

“So Peitho just gave Nico a Greek makeover and left?” she said when they’d finished their brief account. Annabeth looked at Will. There was so much to talk about, but so little to say. They would discuss what had transpired, at a later time, and amongst themselves. Will shrugged. Piper gave her a searching look, and she met it, giving nothing away.

 

“And how did Nico know you were here?” The question was aimed at Will and her, as Nico was still looking at the ground, but Nico answered all the same.

 

“Annabeth, her life force. It was flickering,” Nico said quietly.

 

“You’re hurt? Here, let me see.” Annabeth didn’t think her actual physical wounds were the reason Nico was alerted, but she gently held out her arm to Will, supporting her wrist with her other hand.

 

Will’s eyes widened as he felt her wrist. “Why didn’t you say anything?”he demanded. “And don’t tell me it doesn’t hurt.”

 

Will knew the psychology of demigods too well. “It’s tolerable,” she said.

 

He got bandages out of his bag and set her wrist, singing a hymn to Apollo while he did so. She gritted her teeth when the bandages were pulled too tight, and Will gave her a sympathetic smile. “You’ll be fine after some ambrosia.”

 

He looked at Nico as if he wanted to heal him as well, but what should he try to heal? Nico’s wounds, both mental and physical, were already scars. Did Will feel the same way she did, as if a door had opened wide just long enough to see what lay inside, but not long enough for him to enter?

 

“I’m fine.” said Nico. He still wouldn’t meet their eyes, and was glaring at the ground as if he were planning an escape route to the Underworld.

 

“No, you’re not. Give me your hands,” Will said, in an authoritative voice he reserved only for his patients.

 

Nico held them out, then made as if to retract them. The image of Nico coyly reaching out for Will’s hand just minutes before flashed in her mind, and it must have for Nico as well.

 

Will grasped them all the same, and started another hymn for Apollo. It was longer, and more rhythmic. Will actually shone a faint gold, and shadows oozed out from under Nico’s bare feet, burning away under the light a second later. The hymn finished, and Nico looked less faint, though still gaunt. Will, on the other hand, looked a bit pale.

 

“We’ll have to stay the night here, we’re all too tired. Let’s set up camp in a corner,” she suggested as Will fed Nico unicorn horn draught from a plastic bottle.

 

“Maybe we should find somewhere indoors,” Will said. The midnight air was humid and only slightly cool to the skin, but Nico still shivered in his thin chiton.

 

They discussed finding a hostel or a cheap motel, but Nico cut them off. “What are you going on about? There are thousands of places right here. This is the final resting place. If it’s good enough for the dead, it’s good enough for the living."

 

They were honestly a bit creeped out about the idea, and Piper asked, “You mean like sleep inside the grave, with the corpse?”

 

“Well if that bothers you that much”, he said, as if he didn’t really see why it would. “There’s one that’s empty, some people are overprepared.”

 

He led them to a white pyramid shaped crypt. It was the size of an average tool shed, and the four of them probably could fit inside, if kept to sitting on the floor.

 

Will read the plaque on the vault. “We’re sleeping in Nicolas Cage’s grave?” he gaped.

 

“Yeah.” Nico raised an eyebrow. “Why, is it someone you know?”

 

“Well he’s... kinda famous.”

 

Nico nodded. “Explains why it’s so grandiose.” They all made fun of Hazel to being oblivious to pop culture, but in truth Nico didn’t fare much better. The difference, she thought, was that while Hazel responded with mild embarrassment at her ignorance, with Nico, the effect was backfired. His cool indifference only shed light to the insignificance of such trivialities, and by extension, the minds of those who indulged in them.

 

“I can’t believe I’m going to sleep in the grave of my dad’s buddy.” Piper mused.

 

Nico clenched his hands to fists and the lower part of the crypt, where the coffin was to enter, opened.

 

“You all right? Feeling dizzy, intangible?” Will fussed. Nico snorted, looking more like his old self again. “Shut up and get in. My feet are freezing.”

 

“Serves you right for getting us into this mess.” Piper said cheerily as they crawled into the crypt. Unlike Will and her, she had no brand new reservations in regards to Nico. For one second Annabeth envied her ignorance, but then remembered how she’d wished she hadn’t found out about Nico being raped. As she entered the dark crypt she brought out her flashlight, and thought about how there was no sin in knowledge itself. What she would do with what she’d learnt was up to her. She could use it to fuel her remorse and stipulation, or she could try and use it to breach them. She clicked on the flashlight and the little alcove lit up. There wasn’t much to see, but it was better than being in the dark.

 

They sat on the floor. Will’s head almost reached the slanted wall, but the rest fit comfortably in. Nico dusted off his knees slowly. “What do you mean, I got you into this mess?”

 

“Well if you hadn’t run off in the first place.”

 

“You’re here to find me?” he asked, as if he dared not believe it. He hadn’t known that they were here to save him, things had happened the other way around.

 

“I told you, no more shadowtravelling until I say so.” Will said officiously. “Where were you, anyway? You were in the city, right?”

 

“I was in cemetery number three.”

 

The three of them groaned. They’d been right the first time.

 

“You were okay when you arrived, though?”

 

“I was unconscious at first.” He admitted. “But I woke up.” He gave a worried look at Annabeth. Had her life force been endangered enough to wake him from oblivion?

 

“I’m sorry,” he said.

 

She didn’t want him thinking that all that had transpired today was his fault, it was not true, but he would; he was a hero, no matter what others thought of him. If it could not be helped, she could at least use the guilt for a better cause. “Nico, don’t leave again. Please.”

 

“You told me you wouldn’t.” Will added softly.

 

Nico didn’t answer, and in the pause that followed the musty air seemed to cling to them.

 

“All right.”

 

Will smiled, his teeth nearly luminescent in the dark corners of the vault. Nico lifted his eyes under his thick lashes and met his gaze, for the first time after Peitho left. There was a longing in his eyes, just a small glimmer of it, for it was held back by himself. She could understand the reasons for Peitho’s actions. Annabeth would have liked to tear that obstruction away, leave him open and happy, reveling in his love. If she could have, she would have done it, as Peitho had done. Annabeth had been shown what was to come of it, and saw the injudiciousness of the notion. She would no longer try to fix Nico, and perhaps Will would as well. They had both objectified Nico, as a mere recipient of her sympathy and his affection, when he could be so much more.

 

“We’ll be all right.” Will said in an unexpected variant of Nico’s words. She imagined he was referring to his and Nico’s relationship, but he fixed his gaze on all of them.

 

She raised her eyebrows at him, and he explained. “Haven’t you ever wondered why we aren’t all popping happy pills? It’s not just our physical wounds that heal so much faster than normal.”

 

“We’ll be all right,” he repeated, and this declaration of his optimism sent a warm glow over her that made her wonder if he wasn’t healing their internal wounds by his presence.

 

Will would be good for Nico.

 

She nodded, and watched as he turned his doctor’s bag into a staff to lessenthe space it took up, and pushed it into a corner. Nico looked in as well, curious.

 

“What’s this knob on the end of your staff?” he asked.

 

Piper sniggered at the double entendre and Will went a bit red. Nico looked just plain confused. It broke a tension in the dusty air, and the crypt seemed brighter, warmer.

 

But apparently not warm enough. Nico had stopped shivering, but he still crossed his arms protectively over his chest, where the thin fabric did nothing to hide his erect nipples, and rubbed his hands over his arms. Piper noticed as well. “We’ll need to take you shopping.”

 

Nico rolled his eyes. “But seriously,” asked Annabeth, thinking about Hades cabin and its empty cabinets. “Weren’t you wearing the only set of clothes you owned?”

 

He sighed exasperatedly “Okay,” he said grudgingly. “But don’t you dare think you can play dress-up with me."

 

Piper grinned. “Whatever. Promise me you’ll get at least something that isn’t black, though, okay?”

 

Nico ignored her and fussed with his chiton, trying to cover more of himself. They’d thought the conversation was over when she heard a small “Yeah, sure.”

 

Piper grinned and poked Annabeth. “We’re having so much fun tomorrow, girlfriend!” The designation, innocuous as it was, made her blush for a second as she remembered Piper licking her patella.

 

Apparently, her blushing was a rare occurrence, because she found her friends staring at her in shock. She was going to ignore their searching gaze, but Piper piped up, “Peitho made us make out, and Annabeth is being a prude about it.”

 

“I’m not.” Annabeth said unconvincingly. She’d have preferred it if Piper hadn’t told Nico about it, though that line of thought seemed a bit hypocritical, seeing as how she’d found out more of Nico’s secrets than he’d ever want her to know.

 

“Don’t be like that Annie. Are you trying to say I’m not a good kisser? I’m hurt.” Piper said jokingly.

 

“You are.” She admitted. “You were too good, that’s the problem.” She facepalmed as Piper gave her a hug. “Let’s just not mention this to anyone, okay?”

 

“Well, if you ever feel like a foursome, just know there’s more than one place in you I won’t mind sticking my tongue in. Plus, I swear Jason checks out Percy whenever he goes topless at the sword arena.”

 

“Oh my gods, Piper!”

 

Will was howling with laughter. Annabeth might have said something biting to Piper if she hadn’t caught her sneaking a look at Nico. He was blushing and staring at his plastic bottle as if he wondered if it’d been drugged. It had been a little show for his benefit. She deflated. It was time he knew people weren’t so antagonistic towards sexual freedom anymore.

 

“Let’s get some sleep,” she sighed instead.

 

 

 

=====

 

Annabeth watched the moonlight and hit the floor of the alcove in a blurry rectangular patch. She’d volunteered to keep watch, and the three of them had gotten under as soon as their heads hit the floor. She was tired as well, but she had too much things to think about to sleep. Piper was snoring softly next to Will, and Nico was to her right, curled up in a fetal pose that was queasily familiar.

 

She thought about Nico lying on the bank of the Plegethon. The Lump churned in the back of her head. She now knew better than to endorse it. The things that had happened to Nico, those were not her fault. It sounded selfish, but it was really the other way around. She’d focused on the things she could not have stopped to avoid the real reason for her guilt, that is, that she had not cared enough.

 

She’d wanted Nico to be lively and bouncy, as Peitho had brazenly shown her, and saw how self-interested a notion that had been. Her wish hadn’t been in sake for Nico’s happiness but for her own peace of mind. Nico had changed, but people changed all the time. She herself had been brutally stripped of her childhood innocence. But was she really worse off for it? She had been broken too, many times. When her family had cast her out. When Thalia had turned into a tree. When Luke turned bad. But she’d fixed herself in her own way, and somewhere along the process, she’d become a better person for it. She thought about Percy and Nico, before and after Tartarus. It was true for them as well, she decided.

 

She thought about something she’d once read. _Kintsugi_ , To mend with gold. Perhaps some things were more beautiful for having been broken.

 

Next to her, Nico shifted in his sleep, and his head almost fell off the backpack he’d been using as a pillow. She cradled his head gently to return it to its previous position, but feeling the lumpy soda cans in the bag, placed it on her lap instead.

 

She wondered at herself. She was never so forward in her affection. She remembered her dream, where Luke had placed her head on his knees. She and Percy could have been to Nico what Luke and Thalia had been to her. They could have given him much more than he was given.

 

Nico fidgeted, and opened his eyes slowly. Looking directly down on them, she was again reminded of dark pits. Her epiphany should have come before, but it was only after Tartarus that she felt real compassion for the boy. That was her real transgression.

 

It had taken an abyss for her to try to atone.

 

Nico’s eyes widened when he realized he was in her lap. He tried to move out, but she implored him with her eyes to stay. He obliged.

 

“Hey,” she said. He looked up at her.

 

She hesitated. There was so much she could talk to him about. Years spanned between them, never approached but simply endured. “How did you feel my life force?” she asked, settling for the latest question. “I wasn’t really hurt.”

 

“You would have been.” Nico said, his voice a little rough from sleep.

 

“Piper was hurt more.”

 

“I don’t know her. I don’t know her life force. Not like I know yours.”

 

She swallowed a lump in her throat at that. Nico was terrifyingly, devastatingly alone. For years, she and Percy had been the only people of significance in his life. And he’d been forced to push them away.

 

“Thank you.”

 

He didn’t answer but instead turned his gaze towards the patch of moonlight.There was a look in his face that was as old as the ages, and Annabeth imagined that this would be how she would always think of him; Nico, staring out at the world with all the quiet intensity and melancholy of a pre-Raphaelite painting.

 

“You shouldn’t have come here. If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt,” he said angrily. As he’d been raped for the lives of all those who had outcast him, she would have been raped for his freedom. He saw this, and he couldn’taccept it because he didn’t think her cause was worthy enough.

 

“If I hadn’t, I still would have gotten hurt,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “I do care about you, Nico.” She watched his expression. “Thank you for liking me, even when you thought I didn’t.”

 

He didn’t say anything, he couldn’t deny what he’d told her himself.

 

She had the strongest, craziest urge to do something. She almost held herself back, but she remembered how tightly he’d grasped Will’s and her hand when he’d been rendered vulnerable and frank. She thought about Peitho saying that Nico was afraid to ask for the things he wanted because he’d been denied them too often. Human contact, she concluded, was one of them.

 

Approaching Nico was always like stepping on thin ice, but for once, she didn’t care if she fell through. She imagined, or perhaps remembered from a half-forgotten dream, an image of a solitary figure in the middle of a frozen lake. She was running towards him, the ice cracking under her feet. The figure was a mere three feet away from her. She jumped, plunged into the air…

 

As she’d seen Nico do it to Hazel countless times, as he almost certainly had done to Bianca many times more, she kissed him on the forehead.

 

The contact lasted a mere fraction of a second, but long enough for her to feel how cold his skin was. Nico’s eyes were wide in shock, and Annabeth panicked, thinking he was having a blackout again.

 

Then he started snickering.

 

At the disgusted look on her face, he waved his hand in denial and pushed himself off from her lap.

 

“No, no.” he said, looking deadly serious again as he always did. “I was just thinking, if I weren’t….If I’d ever liked girls the way I…”He swallowed. “I’d have fallen in love with you instead.”

 

What he said made her irrationally glad, but she also saw that the fact was inevitable. There had only been two people in his universe to fall in love with.

 

Nico inched up to sit next to her, his arms around his knees. Nico had said love, not crush, because he knew that she knew the extent of his infatuation for Percy. Even the briefest foray into Nico’s mind could reveal that.

 

“It isn’t all in vain, you know,” she started. “The things we do for the ones we…” She paused. This wasn’t something she’d ever imagined she’d talk about, especially not with Nico di Angelo. “For a long time, I wished I didn’t loved Luke.”

 

To be honest, it wasn’t love that she had for Luke, not really, not something like Nico had had for Percy, but a parallel could be drawn with enough substantiation, the passion and the longing was certainly similar. She did not think she could explain it, and she’d stopped trying to find a name for it long ago. So she said love, though it wasn’t.

 

“It would have saved me a world of hurt. I wouldn’t have had to wait five years. But in the end, I was what saved him, and that was what saved the world.”

 

She turned her head to look at him, and he met her eyes. There was only a span of distance between them. She didn’t say anything more, but she knew he got the message. His love had rendered Percy invincible, and Percy had saved the world. It was ironic, if she thought about it, that Percy thanked her for gift of the Styx, while Nico was blamed for it. It said a lot about how life had treated the boy. Gratitude was a foreign concept for him.

 

“Thank you, for loving him,” she said.

 

She wouldn’t be able to talk to him like this, not for years, at least. Neither of them had learnt to be unguarded. But this was a night of confessions, of breaking down borders, and she could cherish the single moment. Nico’s eyes looked into hers, and the look he found there was a familiar one. Perhaps she wasn’t the only one who thought too much. The sense of vertigo engulfed her, as it had earlier that day. She was staring at herself- he was staring at himself.

 

She wanted the moment to stretch on, wanted to carry a piece of it out to the world. Her mind wandered, and found itself on a solid niche. It may not be her question to ask, but it was Nico’s to answer, and that was what was important just now.

 

Just like the good old times, Percy had said on the lake. But maybe, new times could be better.

 

She thought of Nico a little before, smiling like a small child. He would, in some ways, never cease to be the younger brother. The idea was a melancholy one, as every thought concerning him proved to be. But there was a hopeful side to it, as it held a blueprint to his happiness, and so she opened her lips and pushed off the question that was already on the tip of her tongue.

 

It would take a lot to lessen the guilt she had for him. But she had to start somewhere.

 

“What do you say to blue birthday cake?”

 

She watched two abysses fill up in surprise, and a second later, delight.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe that my very first fic turned into nearly 30k monster. Thanks for everyone who's had the patience to finish it.
> 
> I'll be posting another one-shot tomorrow, plus I'm planning out another sequel to this fic, so please stay updated!!
> 
> If you liked what you read, or there's anything you'd like to ask me, don't hesitate to comment. My motiation needs a boost, and more interaction means a better chance of me finishing that sequel!


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